UC-NRLF 


C    2   b73   b33 


RAITS  OF  DANTE 


BY 


RANK  JEWETT  MATHER,  JR. 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


K. 


T>AHTKS^ALljTGHS%tVf^  FLOXBHTJHV^. 


AUnari 

Dante  in  Palatine  Ms.  No.  320,  Biblioteca  Nazionale,  Florence.    A  copy  from 
Taddeo  Gaddi's  lost  Fresco  and  the  most  Authentic  Portrait  of  the  Poet. 


Princeton  Monographs  in  Art  and  Archaeology.    X 

THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

COMPARED  WITH  THE  MEASUREMENTS  OF  HIS 
SKULL  AND  RECLASSIFIED 


BY 


FRANK  JEWETT  MATHER,  JR., 
PH.D.,  L.H.D. 

MARQUAND  PROFESSOR  OF  ART  AND  ARCHAEOLOGY  IN 
PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY 


PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
PRINCETON 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1921 


Princeton  Univebsitt  Press 

Printed  by  Princeton  University  Press 
Princeton,  N.  J.,  U.  S.  A. 
Published,  1921 


TO 

THE    MEMORY 

OF 

THE    GREATEST    OF    CHRISTIAN    POETS 

ON 

THE  SIXTH    CENTENARY   OF   HIS   DEATH 

SEPTEMBER    21,    I92I 


^52570 


PREFACE 

Whoever  in  this  centenary  year  would  study  the  history  and  bibhography 
of  the  portraits  of  Dante  must  perforce  read  Dr.  Holbrook's  standard  book. 
Accordingly  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary  to  repeat  unduly  the  matter 
provided  so  richly  and  agreeably  in  his  pages.    Save  for  the  scrupulous  use 
of  the  measurements  of  Dante's  skull  and  their  graphic  application  to  the 
problem  of  the  portraits,  I  can  claim  little  originality  for  my  w^ork.     I 
hope,  however,  to  have  put  beyond  dispute  the  fact  that  the  Palatine  Minia- 
ture is  the  most  authentic  likeness,  and  to  have  given  a  more  acceptable 
account  of  the  sources  of  Signorelli's  and  of  Raphael's  Dante  than  we  have 
had  hitherto.     I  have  tried  also  to  give  an  improved  classification  of  the 
minor  and  eccentric  types.     Beyond  this  the  Riccardian  Portrait  and  the 
so-called  Death-mask  are  shown  to  be  of  identical  profile.     While  I  have 
sought  to  give  due  credit  to  my  numerous  predecessors — my  debt  to  Hol- 
brook  especially  is  great  and  gladly  acknowledged — I  have  shunned  the  un- 
gracious task  of  noting  old  errors,  natural  at  the  time,  the  correction  of 
which  is  now  obvious  to  any  careful  reader.     To  Mrs.  Emily  A.  Murray 
of  the  Photostat  Department  of  the  Princeton  University  Library  I  am 
under  deep  obligations  for  her  patient  and  accurate  work  in  reducing  the 
skull  and  diagrams  to  precise  measurements.     Without  her  aid   I  could 
hardly  have  made  my  tribute  before  the  Centenary.     I  wish  also  to  thank 
my  friend  Professor  Irving  Babbitt  for  reading  the  proofs.    To  have  had 
my  rough  diagrams  redrawn  by  a  professional  hand  would  have  given 
them  and  this  book  a  more  workmanlike  aspect.     But  I  feared  falsification 
of  the  delicate  measurements  in  such  a  process,  and  have  preferred  to  pre- 
sent my  graphic  material  in  its  crude  integrity.     For  this  and  the  graver 
errors  I  may  have  incurred  let  me  plead  with  the  Poet' — 

Vagliami  il  lungo  studio  e  il  grande  amore. 

The  Author. 
ix 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter  I.    Contemporary  Records  and  Portraits i 

Limited  scope  of  the  study — p.  i ;  Boccaccio's  description  of  Dante — 
pp.  1-2 ;  was  Dante  bearded  and  light  haired — p.  2 ;  discovery  of  Dante's 
bones — p.  3;  the  reconstruction  of  the  skull  from  the  measurements — p.  4; 
missing  measurements  unimportant — p.  5 ;  use  of  the  skull  diagram  for 
checking  purposes  illustrated  with  the  so-called  death-mask — pp.  5,  6 ; 
Giotto's  Dante,  its  date  and  authenticity — pp.  6-8;  why  is  Dante  painted 
so  young — p.  9;  the  discovery  of  Giotto's  Dante  in  1840 — p.  10;  Seymour 
Kirkup's  service  in  making  copies  before  the  restoration — pp.  10,  11;  the 
color  of  the  hood  wrong  in  all  copies — p.  11;  close  agreement  of  skull 
and  Giotto's  portrait — p.  11;  small  influence  of  Giotto's  Dante  because 
not  grim  enough  in  character — p.  1 1 ;  The  Palatine  Miniature  as  a  copy 
of  Taddeo  Gaddi's  lost  Dante  portrait,  pp.  11-15;  Taddeo  might  have 
seen  Dante  between  1312  and  1321, — p.  15;  Taddeo's  portrait  probably 
before  1330 — p.  16;  comparison  of  Giotto's  and  Taddeo's  portraits — pp.  16, 
17;  reconstructions  of  Dante's  features  from  the  skull-plan,  very  similar 
to  the  Palatine — p.  17 ;  influence  of  Taddeo's  portrait  and  its  destruction 
by  Vasari — p.  18. 

Chapter  II.     Other  Fourteenth  Century  Portraits 21 

A  warning  against  Dantes  in  old  frescoes  as  a  class — p.  21 ;  Orcag- 
na's  Dante,  its  toothlessness  probably  based  on  oral  tradition,  apparent 
influence  on  Raphael  and  the  Naples  Bust — pp.  21,  22;  a  dubious  por- 
trait in  the  same  chapel — pp.  22,  23 ;  a  possible  Dante  in  the  Spanish 
Chapel — p.  23 ;  alleged  Dantes  in  S.  Francesco,  Ravenna,  one  echoed  in 
Pietro  Lombardi's  tomb  relief — p.  24;  a  possible  Dante  of  1323  by  the 
Bolognese  notary,  Ugguccione  Bambaglioli — pp.  25,  26. 

Chapter  III.     The  Fifteenth  Century,  the  Iconographic  Tra- 
dition and  its  Growth  29 

On  the  importance  of  little  things  in  iconography — p.  29;  tabulation  of 
iconographic  points  of  the  Dante  portraits  of  Giotto,  Taddeo  Gaddi,  and 
Orcagna — p.  29 ;  sterility  of  Giotto's  tradition — p.  30 ;  probable  derivatives 
in  Andrea  Bonaiuti,  a  miniature,  and  Vasari — pp.  30,  31;  Dante(?)  in  a 
Christ  Church  drawing  of  about  1400 — pp.  31,  32;  The  Riccardian  Por- 
trait, a  Renaissance  revision  of  Taddeo  Gaddi's — pp.  2^,  33;  possibly  by 
Paolo  Uccello  and  a  replica  of  the  portrait  made  for  the  Cathedral 
in  1429 — pp.  34,  35 ;  derivatives — the  bronze  Medal,  the  Death-mask, 
the  Trivulzian  and  Eugenian  Dantes — pp.  36,  37 ;  Botticelli's  illustrations — 
p.  38;  The  Naples  Bust,  its  fidelity  to  the  Taddeo  Gaddi  tradition, 
probably  Florentine  early  i6th  century,  other  views — pp.  39-41 ;  con- 
clusions reached  in  the  chapter — p.  41. 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter  IV.     Fifteenth   Century,   Three-Quarter-Face  Types 

AND  THEIR  DERIVATIVES 45 

Three-quarter-face  types  in  early  Mss. — p.  45;  Andrea  del  Castagno — 
p.  46;  a  Yale  cassone — pp.  46,  47;  Domenico  di  Michelino,  1465,  for  the 
Cathedral — p.  47;  source  of  a  Bronzino(lost)  but  represented  by  copies — 
p.  48;  which  was  popularized  by  Raphael  Morghen's  print  of  1757 — 
pp.  48,  49;  copy  of  a  lost  Dante  drawing  by  A.  Pollaiuolo,  at  Christ 
Church — p.  49;  a  "Signorelli"  drawing  at  Berhn  and  a  Manuscript 
Miniature  at  Turin — p.  50. 

Chapter  V.     Irregular  Types   53 

On  the  variety  of  Dante  types  in  Ms.  miniatures  and  in  cassoni — 
P-  53 ',  two  types  in  a  single  Florentine  miniature — one  haggard,  the 
other  young,  straight  nosed  and  toothless — pp.  54,  55 ;  Giovanni  dal  Ponte's 
Dante  at  Harvard — pp.  55,  56;  the  Vatican  Urbinate  Ms.  and  Signorelli 
at  Orvieto — p.  57;  Pesellino,  the  painter  of  the  Uffizi  jardeniere,  an  in- 
tarsia  by  Benedetto  da  Majano:  all  grim  types — p.  57;  Filippino  Lippi's 
Dante  in  the  Brancacci,  straight  nose,  round  ear-tabs — pp.  57,  58;  Justus 
of  Ghent  at  Urbino — p.  58;  derivative  the  "Morris  Moore  Raphael" — p. 
60;  Raphael's  three  Dantes,  their  very  composite  origin  and  iconographic 
irregularity — pp.  61-63;  the  Venetian  woodcuts  of  1521  and  1529 — pp. 
63,  64;  Bernardino  India's  portrait,  its  character  and  popularity,  a  deriva- 
tive ascribed  to  Giambellino — pp.  64,  65 ;  the  Munich  drawing  and  the 
Sessa  woodcut  of  1564 — pp.  65,  66;  Conclusion — the  three  Dantes  yet 
to   be  created — p.  66. 

Bibliography  67 

Appendix  I.     On  the  Reconstruction  of  the  skull  from  the  Official 

Measurements,  Front  and  Side  Views 69,  71 

Appendix  II.    Tacca's  "Head"  of  Dante 72,  73 

Genealogical  Tables  of  the  Portraits 74,  75 

A  Summary  Catalogue  of  Dante  Portraits 79-85 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 
The  Palatine  Miniature Frontispiece 

FIGURE  PAGE 

I' — Skull  of  Dante,  side  view 3 

2 — Skull  of  Dante,  front  view  4 

3 — The  Death-mask  checked  by  the  Skull   6 

4 — Giotto's  Paradise  in  the  Bargello 7 

5 — Seymour  Kirkup's  copy  of  Giotto's  Dante   8 

6 — Giotto's  Dante,  Kirkup's  small  color  sketch 9 

7 — The  Arundel  Print 9 

8 — Faltoni's  copy  of  Giotto's  Dante lO 

9 — Giotto's  Dante  as  now  repainted  by  Marini   . , lo 

lo — Giotto's  Dante  checked  by  the  Skull 12 

1 1 — Head  by  Taddeo  Gaddi  13 

12 — The  Palatine  Miniature 13 

13 — Head  by  Taddeo  Gaddi  13 

14 — The  Palatine  Miniature  checked  by  the  Skull 14 

15 — The  Palatine  Miniature  overlaid  on  Giotto's  Dante 16 

16 — Portrait  of  Dante  reconstructed  from  the  Skull 17 

17 — Portrait  of  Dante  reconstructed  from  the  Skull 17 

18 — The  Palatine  Miniature   17 

19 — Orcagna's   Dante    22 

20 — Alleged  Dante  in  Orcagna's  Paradiso   23 

,     21 — Dante (  ?)  by  Andrea  Bonaiuti,  Spanish  Chapel 23 

22 — Alleged  Dante  in  S.  Francesco,  Ravenna 24 

23 — Dante,  Pietro  Lombardi's  marble  relief  on  the  Tomb 24 

24 — Dante  (?)   Ugguccione  Bambaglioli's  sketch  of  1323 25 

25 — Grassa  Bologna,  from  the  same  document 25 

26 — Dante  by  or  after  Vasari  at  Cleveland 30 

27 — Drawing  of  Dante(  ?)  at  Christ  Church,  Oxford 31 

28 — The  Riccardian  Portrait,  Early  Renaissance  Dante 33 

29 — The   Renaissance   Medal    34 

30 — The  Riccardian  Portrait  compared  with  the  Death-mask 35 

31* — Botticelli,  illustration  for  the  Paradiso  37 

31' — Botticelli,  illustration  for  the  Paradiso 37 

32 — The  Naples  Bust,  front  view 38 

xiii 


XIV 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FIGURE  PAGE 

33 — The  Naples  Bust,  side  view 40 

34, — The  Naples  Bust  superimposed  on  the  Palatine  Miniature 41 

35' — Dante  from  a  Laurentian  Ms.  of  about  1400 45 

35"^ — Andrea  del  Castagno's  Dante 46 

36 — Dante    from   a   cassone   front   in    the   Jarves    Collection,    Yale 

University 47 

37 — Domenico  di  Michelino's  Dante,  Cathedral,  Florence 48 

38 — Head  of  same 49 

39 — The  Tofanelli-Morghen  Print 49 

39" — Dante,  old  copy  of  a  drawing  by  Antonio  Pollaiuolo 46 

40 — The  Yale  Dante 49 

41" — Dante (  ?),  drawing  by  Piero  di  Cosimo,  Berlin 50 

41"^ — Dante  from  a  Ms.  in  the  University  Library,  Turin 50 

42 — Dante  before  the  Muse  Calliope,  Ms.  Miniature  at  Venice 53 

43 — Dante  in  the  selva  oscura,  Ms.  Miniature  at  Paris 54 

44 — Giovanni  dal  Ponte's  Dante  at  Harvard  University 56 

45 — Dante  with  Paolo  and  Francesca  from  a  Vatican  Ms 55 

46 — Signorelli's  Dante  at  Orvieto 56 

47 — Dante    from    Pesellino's    Triumph    of    Fame,    Fenway    Court, 

Boston   57 

48 — Benedetto  da  Majano's  Dante,  intarsia,  Palazzo  Vecchio 58 

49 — Dante  from  a  Triumph  of  Fame,  furniture  panel,  Uffizi 57 

50 — Filippino  Lippi's  Dante,  fresco  in  the  Brancacci  Chapel 59 

51 — Dante  by  Justus  of  Ghent,  Louvre 60 

52 — Alleged  Dante,  fresco  in  Sant'Agostino,  Rimini 61 

53 — Dante,   "The  Morris   Moore  Raphael" 60 

54 — Dante,  fresco  from  Raphael's  Disputa 61 

55 — Drawing  for  Raphael's  Dante  in  the  Parnassus 62 

56 — Raphael's  Dante,  fresco,  in  the  Parnassus 61 

57 — Woodcut  from  the  Convivio  of  152 1   63 

58 — Woodcut  from  the  Divine  Comedy  of  1529 63 

59 — Engraving  after  Bernardino  India's  Dante 64 

60 — Engraving  after  a  lost  portrait  ascribed  to  Giambellino 64 

61 — Dante,  sixteenth  century  drawing  in  the  Munich  Print  Room.  .  65 

62 — Woodcut  from  Sessa's  "Divine  Comedy"  of  1564 65 

63 — Terra  cotta  head  of  Dante  in  the  Galletti  collection,  Florence ...  72 

DIAGRAM 

I — Dante's  Skull  reconstructed  to  scale  from  the  official  measure- 
ments, side  view   68 

II — Dante's  Skull,  front  view,  reconstructed  to  scale  from  the  offi- 
cial measurements  70 


CHAPTER  ONE 
CONTEMPORARY  RECORDS  AND  PORTRAITS 


CHAPTER  ONE 

CONTEMPORARY  RECORDS  AND  PORTRAITS 

Boccaccio's  Testimony.     The  Reconstruction  of  Dante's 

Skull  from  the  Measurements.     Giotto's  Dante.    Taddeo 

Gaddi's  Dante  the  Most  Authentic  Portrait. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  review  the  numerous  Dante  portraits.  That  has 
been  well  done  by  Paur,  Franz  Xaver  Kraus,  Richard  Thayer  Holbrook, 
Parodi,  and  lately  by  Passerini.  I  wish  rather  to  find  among  the  many, 
the  portrait  or  portraits  that  actually  resemble  the  poet,  and  then  to  con- 
sider the  origin  of  the  finer  artistic  types.  The  two  classes  do  not  neces- 
sarily cover.  One  may  agree  with  Dr.  Holbrook  that  only  Giotto's  youthful 
Dante  at  Florence  and  the  austere  bust  at  Naples  are  "Dantesque."  That 
only  means  that  they  satisfy  our  imagination.  They  may  or  may  not  look 
like  Dante.  Indeed  we  shall  find  that  one  of  the  more  ugly  and  artistically 
negligible  portraits  actually  preserves  the  true  proportions  of  the  face. 
That  need  not  surprise  us.  Charles  Willson  Peale's  and  Gilbert  Stuart's 
Washington  are  so  different  that  we  hardly  recognize  the  same  individual. 
Peale's,  according  to  all  evidence  and  probability,  presents  the  Virginia 
squire  as  his  contemporaries  actually  saw  him,  but  Stuart's  masterly  head 
is  the  only  one  that  posterity  has  accepted  as  a  worthy  likeness  of  the 
father  of  our  nation. 

There  exists  no  portrait  painted  in  Dante's  lifetime,  but  fortunately  his 
devout  admirer  and  commentator  Boccaccio  consulted  the  memories  of 
certain  friends  and  contemporaries.  Boccaccio  visited  Ravenna  in  1346, 
twenty-five  years  after  Dante's  death,  and  again  in  1353.  On  both  occa- 
sions he  saw  men  who  knew  the  poet  in  his  last  years.  Boccaccio  writes, 
(I  use  Dr.  Holbrook's  translation)  : 

"Our  poet  was  of  middle  height,  and  in  his  later  years  he  walked  some- 
what bent  over,  with  a  grave  and  gentle  gait.  He  was  clad  always  in  most 
seemly  attire,  such  as  befitted  his  ripe  years.  His  face  was  long,  his  nose 
aquiline,  and  his  eyes  rather  big  than  small.  His  jaws  were  large,  and  his 
lower  lip  protruded.  His  complexion  was  dark,  his  hair  and  beard  thick, 
black,  and  curly,  and  his  expression  ever  melancholy  and  thoughtful." 

These  somewhat  vague  but  welcome  details  Boccaccio  got  from  friends 
of  Dante  including  Dino  Perini,  Andrea  Poggi,  and  Pier  Giardino.     Boc- 


2  '   '     TliK"  ^OiRTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

caccio  oddly  fuils  to  nieiiti{>n:' any  portrait  of  Dante.  Since  the  two  con- 
temporary portraits  do  not  show  the  protruding  under  lip,  we  may  suppose 
that  this  trait  was  originally  not  prominent,  but  became  more  marked 
with  old  age  and  toothlessness.  Boccaccio's  informants  saw  Dante  only 
in  his  last  years. 

Dante  speaks  of  himself  as  being  bearded  and  as  having  tawny  hair  in 
youth.  In  the  Paradiso,  xx,  Beatrice  tells  him  to  "lift  up  his  beard,"  that 
is  to  look  at  her.  The  natural  inference  is  that  when  he  was  writing  these 
lines,  probably  about  1320,  he  wore  a  beard.  It  seems  to  me  over-ingenious 
to  suppose  with  several  critics  that  Dante  was  bearded  at  the  imaginary 
time  of  his  vision,  1300,  All  the  portraits  of  any  authority,  and  at  least 
one  seems  to  represent  him  after  13 12,  show  him  smooth  shaven.  We 
must  suppose  that  he  occasionally  wore  a  beard  and  did  so  in  his  last  years 
when  Boccaccio's  informants  knew  him  at  Ravenna.  For  that  matter  Boc- 
caccio's tradition  that  Dante  let  his  beard  grow  after  Beatrice's  death  may 
be  true.     Generally  he  went  beardless  like  most  patricians  of  his  age. 

In  a  Latin  correspondence  with  Giovanni  del  Virgilio,  in  13 19,  Dante 
speaks  of  his  whitening  hair  as  once  tawny.^  This  is  apparently  at  variance 
with  Boccaccio's  account.  But  this  may  mean  nothing  more  than  that  his 
hair,  originally  rather  light,  darkened  with  age — a  very  common  case. 

Such  is  the  scanty  historical  evidence  for  Dante's  looks.  Plainly  it  does 
not  go  far  as  a  check  upon  the  various  old  portraits.  To  select  the  most 
resemblant  one  on  any  such  basis  would  be  to  make  a  very  subjective  choice. 

Happily  we  are  not  reduced  to  that.  In  the  measurements  of  Dante's 
skull  we  have  objective  evidence  of  a  most  valuable  sort — a  real  check 
upon  the  various  portraits.  My  purpose  is  simply  to  make  the  fullest  use 
of  this  evidence,  which  has  been  strangely  neglected. 

1  Dante,  Eclogue  i,  to  Giovanni  del  Virgilio,  11.  33  flf. 

"Me  vocat  ad  frondes  versa  Peneide  cretas. 
Quid  facies?     Meliboeus  ait.     Tu  tempora  lauro 
Semper  inornata  per  pascua  pastor  habebis? 
O  Meliboee,  decus  vatum  quoque  nomen  in  auras 
Fluxit,  et  insomnem  vix  Mopsum  Musa  peregit. 
Retuleram,  quum  sic  dedit  indignatio  vocem: 
Quantos  balatus  colles  et  prata  sonabunt, 
Si  viridante  coma  fidibus  paeana  ciebo ! 
Sed  timeam  saltus,  et  rura  ignara  deorum. 
Nonne  triumphales  melius  pexare  capillos, 
Et,  patrio  redeam  si  quando,  abscondere  canos 
Fronde  sub  inserta  solitum  flavescere  Sarno?" 
Meliboeus   is   Dante's    friend   Dino   Perini,    Mopsus   is   Giovanni   del   Virgilio.     Dante 
values  the  offer  of  the  poet's  laurel  but  fears  to  go  to  Bologna  and  asks  if  it  would  not  be 
better  to  be  laureated  in  his  fatherland,  wreathing  the  white  hair  which  once  was  tawny 
on  the  Arno. 
For  a  careful  discussion  of  this  doubtful  passage  see  Holbrook  and  Parodi. 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  3 

On  May  2y,  1865,  certain  masons  working  in  a  close  adjacent  to  the 
Church  of  San  Francesco  at  Ravenna  accidentally  hit  a  rude  coffin.  As 
they  cleared  it,  they  read  Dantis  ossa  denuper  revisa  die  j  Junii  i6y'/'.  That 
is  "Dante's  bones  again  inspected  3  June  1677."  As  a  result  of  this  dis- 
covery, the  tomb  of  Dante  was  opened  and  found  empty  save  for  a  few 
dried  laurel  leaves  and  some  small  bones  missing  from  the  skeleton.  In- 
deed for  nearly  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  venerated  shrine  had 
been  empty.  What  had  happened  was  this :  After  negotiations  repeated 
through  the  fifteenth  century  to  recover  the  ashes  of  her  exiled  poet,  Flor- 


FiG.  I.    Side  view  of  Dante's   Skull 
drawn  from  the  official  measure-     , 
ments.    Teeth  and  lower  jaw 
restored. 


ence  found  in  the  election  of  the  Medici  Pope,  Leo  X,  the  necessary  po- 
litical support.  In  1 5 19  he  ordered  Ravenna  to  surrender  the  skeleton  to 
Florence.  The  plan  was  thwarted  by  the  friars  who  had  custody  of  the 
tomb.  Cutting  through  the  cloister  wall  against  which  the  sarcophagus 
stood,  they  removed  the  bones  and  buried  them  secretly.  In  this  hurried 
translation,  a  few  small  bones  were  still  left  in  the  sarcophagus  and  the 
lower  jaw  was  lost.  For  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  friars  seem  to  have 
had  the  custom  of  occasionally  verifying  their  treasure.  After  the  last 
inspection  recorded  on  the  coffin  in  1677,  the  memory  of  the  afifair  seems 
to  have  died  out  in  the  convent.  There  remained  only  the  persistent  rumor 
at  Ravenna  that  Dante's  tomb  was  empty. ^ 

The  discovery  of  the  skeleton  on  Dante's  birth  year  naturally  created  an 
immense  enthusiasm  at  Ravenna.  The  bones  were  reassembled  into  a 
skeleton  which  lay  in  state  in  a  glass  coffin  until  the  formal  reinterment  in 
the  original  sarcophagus.     The  skeleton  was  that  of  a  man  five  feet  five 

2  All  this  most  interesting  story  is  fully  told  in  Ricci,  pp.  338  ff.  For  all  matters  con- 
nected with  the  discovery  of  the  skeleton  and  the  measurements  consult  Ricci  "L'ultimo 
Rifugio"  passim. 


4  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

and  one  half  inches  high.  Unhappily  the  Commune  of  Ravenna  regarded 
its  relic  with  jealousy  and  declined  either  to  have  the  skeleton  photographed 
or  a  cast  made  of  the  skull.  Instead  they  commissioned  local  physicians 
to  measure  the  bones  and  draw  up  a  report.  It  was  dated  June  12,  1865, 
two  weeks  after  the  discovery.  There  had  been  time  for  careful  work,  and 
it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  so  important  a  task  was  slighted.  The  measure- 
ments have  been  used  by  Welcker  and  Holbrook  (pp.  46-47)  to  settle  the 
case  against  the  so-called  Death-mask  of  Dante. 


Fig.  2.    Front  view  of  Dante's  Skull 
drawn  from  the  official  measure- 
ments.   Teeth  and  lower  jaw 
restored. 


The  trouble  with  skull  measurements,  as  Dr.  Welcker  pointed  out,  is  that 
they  "do  not  enable  us  to  see  a  skull."  As  I  studied  the  measurements, 
however,  I  was  satisfied  that  the  skull  could  be  modelled  from  them  with 
entire  accuracy.  So  I  tried  to  interest  that  remarkable  sculptor-ethnologist, 
Dr.  McGregor  of  Columbia,  whose  restorations  of  prehistoric  skulls  and 
heads  are  famous.  To  interest  him  was  easy,  but  he  was  going  to  Europe. 
So  I  had  to  give  up  the  best  plan — that  of  modelling  the  skull,  and  set 
myself  to  the  task  of  putting  the  measurements  into  a  profile  drawing.  As 
I  worked  away,  it  became  clear  that  measurements  made  graphic  can  go 
far  towards  making  us  see  any  skull.  What  I  got  as  the  reader  may  judge 
(Fig.  i)  was  a  reasonably  accurate  diagram  of  the  profile,  accurate  enough 
to  serve  as  a  check  upon  the  transmitted  portraits;  and  I  also  put  up  a 
front  view  (Fig.  2),  which,  although  the  measurements  do  not  permit  an 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  5 

equal  accuracy,  is  also  reproduced.  The  method  of  draughting  off  the 
measurements  is  fully  explained  in  Appendix  I. 

The  results  were  reassuring.  The  outlines  joined  properly;  hence  the 
measurements  were  correct.  They  did  not  produce,  as  Welcker  had  feared, 
a  monstrous  skull,  but  one  entirely  normal.  Indeed  I  found  in  the  Anatomi- 
cal Museum  of  Princeton  University  a  skull  so  close  in  all  the  facial  meas- 
urements that  I  used  it  to  supply  smaller  measurements  omitted  in  the 
Ravenna  report. 

In  fairness,  all  such  theoretical  measurements  are  here  avowed.  The 
skull  of  Dante  was  found  toothless  and  without  the  lower  jaw.  Since  most 
portraits  represent  Dante  with  teeth,  these  with  the  lower  jaw  have 
been  supplied  from  the  Princeton  skull,  from  which  also  the  cheek  bone 
has  been  drawn  in.  The  small  measurement  from  the  point  betwixt  the 
eyebrows  to  the  suture  at  the  base  of  the  nasal  bone  is  lacking  in  the  official 
report.  From  the  Princeton  skull  I  have  taken  it  as  a  centimeter.  The 
possible  error  is  two  or  three  millimeters.  Again  the  indentation  of  the 
nose  beneath  the  brow  is  uncertain.  Apparently  it  should  be  a  little  greater 
than  I  have  made  it,  if  we  may  accept  the  testimony  of  the  best  portraits. 
A  somewhat  more  serious  lack  is  the  measurement  from  the  bottom  of  the 
nasal  orifice  to  the  upper  jaw  (alveolar).  This  again  I  have  taken  from 
the  Princeton  skull  at  2.5  centimeters.  The  uncertainty  of  this  measure- 
ment produces  a  similar  uncertainty  in  the  slope  of  the  face  (facial  angle 
of  Camper,  79°  34')-  However  such  inaccuracies  at  most  amount  to  an 
upper  lip  and  forehead  a  sixteenth  of  an  inch  or  so  different  from  the  plan. 
There  is  nothing  that  would  change  the  general  aspect.  I  may  note  a  dis- 
crepancy in  Dr.  Nicolucci's  remarks.  In  his  general  description  of  the  skull 
he  speaks  of  the  forehead  as  rising  vertically.  Of  course  no  forehead  liter- 
ally does  this.  But  since  the  facial  angle  is  79°  34' — indicating  a  normally 
slanting  forehead — we  must  imagine  either  that  he  was  holding  the  skull 
wrongly  oriented  when  he  was  making  the  observation,  or  writing  care- 
lessly; and  piously  but  unscientifically  crediting  the  altissimo  poeta  with  a 
brow  of  corresponding  altitude. 

Before  applying  the  diagram  of  the  skull  to  the  portraits,  I  wish  to  re- 
peat, that  everything  in  the  reconstruction  is  either  from  the  official 
measurements  or  from  the  Princeton  skull.  The  portraits  have  been  en- 
tirely disregarded.  The  method  of  comparison  between  the  skull-plan  and 
the  portraits  is  the  simplest.  The  profiles  are  taken  off  in  outline,  and  re- 
duced to  nearly  identical  scale  (the  skull  being  made  a  shade  smaller).  The 
agreement  or  disagreement  of  the  matched  profiles  tells  the  story.  Natu- 
rally an  exact  agreement  between  a  freehand  drawing  and  a  measured 
drawing  of  the  same  head  is  not  to  be  expected.  We  must  be  prepared  to 
find  small  discrepancies  between  the  reconstructed  skull  and  the  authentic 


6  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

portraits.  But  these  discrepancies  should  not  be  large.  On  the  scale  of 
our  reproductions  (about  >^  of  a  diameter)  differences  of  a  sixteenth  of 
an  inch  are  serious.  Let  us  test  the  matter  with  the  so-called  Death-mask, 
which  as  a  fine  piece  of  modelling  and  a  characterful  thing  still  holds  a 
certain  authority  despite  the  observations  of  Welcker  and  Holbrook.  We 
make  the  join  at  the  mouth,  neglecting  the  reconstructed  lower  jaw  of  the 
skull.    The  eye,  the  root  and  the  base  of  the  nose  of  the  Mask  are  all  over 


Fig.  3.    The  Skull  (dotted  line)  over- 
laid   on    the    Death-mask.      The 
misfit  about  the  nose,  eye  and 
brow  is  obvious. 


half  an  inch  lower  than  the  corresponding  points  on  the  skull  (Fig.  3).  The 
maker  of  the  mask  shortens  the  chin  and  upper  lip  and  heightens  the  fore- 
head. The  Death-mask  in  short  is  not  a  cast  from  the  face  nor  directly 
based  on  one  but  an  artistic  improvement  (and  perversion)  of  the  tradi- 
tional portrait  type. 

Having  thus  illustrated  the  method  of  comparison,  I  may  now  apply  it 
to  the  two  portraits  which  were  painted  by  contemporaries  of  Dante, — 
Giotto  and  Taddeo  Gaddi.  Unhappily  we  know  these  portraits  only 
through  copies,  but  we  have  every  reason  to  think  the  copies  faithful. 

Giotto's  portrait  was  painted  in  the  chapel  of  the  Podesta  (Military  Gov- 
ernor of  Florence)  probably  between  1334  and  1337.  It  represents  the 
poet  as  a  man  in  the  late  twenties  amid  the  saved  souls  in  Paradise  (Fig.  4). 
The  portraiture  is  of  notable  ideality  and  beauty.  It  should  be  unnecessary 
to  enter  into  the  needless  controversy  that  raged  about  the  authorship  and 
date  of  this  famous  portrait.  Amateurs  of  such  battles  long  ago  may  find 
the  strategy  and  tactics  spiritedly  recounted  by  Dr.  Holbrook  (Chapter 
IX).  We  have  the  best  contemporary  evidence  for  believing  the  portrait 
to  represent  Dante  and  to  be  by  Giotto.^    Moreover  the  admirable  style  of 

3  Our  firm  witness  to  Giotto's  authorship  of  the  Dante  in  the  Bargello  is  the  town 
crier  and  poetaster  Antonio  Pucci,  who  was  about  Florence  when  the  portrait  was 
painted.  A  general  disposition  to  doubt  so  good  a  contemporary  record  is  merely  an  in- 
heritance of  the  queasiness  that  Milanesi  and  his  generation  introduced  into  the  criticism 
of  Italian  painting.     I  quote  the  biographical  part  of  Pucci's  rimes  from  the  best  text, 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


Fig.  4.     The    Paradise    in    the    Bargello    from    Holbrook,    sketched    by 
Kirkup.    Dante  is  seen  behind  the  figure  kneeling  at  the  right. 

this  and  the  accompanying  portraits  in  the  great  fresco  is  beyond  the  ca- 
pacity of  any  other  known  Florentine  artist  of  the  time.  Nothing  is  to 
be  made  of  the  fact  that  most  of  the  frescoes  of  the  chapel,  representing 

that  of  Magliabecchiana,  Var.  1145,  as  printed  by  Paolo  d'Ancona  in  "Scritti  Danteschi," 

Florence  1913,  p.  54i,  note. 

"Questo  che  veste  di  color  sanguigno 

Posto  seguente  alle  merite  sante 

Dipinse  Giotto  in  figura  di  Dante 

Col  braccio  manco  avvinchia  la  scrittura 


Perfetto  di  fatteze  e  qui  dipinto 
Com'  a  sua  vita  fu  di  carne  cinto." 

"The  one  who  dresses  in  blood-red  color,  placed  behind  the  holy  saints,  Giotto  painted 
in  Dante's  likeness.  .  .  .  With  his  left  hand  he  grasps  the  book.  .  .  .  He  is  here  painted 
perfectly  as  his  features  were,  as  he  was  in  life  when  still  in  the  flesh." 

It  will  be  noted  that  this  description  entirely  corresponds  to  Dante's  action  and  position 
in  the  great  fresco  of  the  Bargello.  Pucci's  testimony  as  to  the  likeness  of  the  portrait 
is  not  very  valuable  for  he  may  never  have  seen  Dante,  and  surely  not  at  the  age  repre- 
sented by  Giotto.    Pucci  was  born  about  1300. 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


Alinari. 
Fig.  5.  Seymour  Kirkup's   copy  of   Giotto's   Dante  in  the   Bargello.     A  combination   of 
the  original  tracing  from  the  fresco  and  the  small  color  sketch. 
The  basis  of  the  Arundel  Print. 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


legends  of  the  titular  Saint,  Mary  Magdalen,  and  St.  John  the  Baptist, 
are  palpably  by  a  weaker  hand.  Giotto,  busy  at  the  moment  with  the 
Campanile  and  other  tasks,  apparently  turned  over  the  mass  of  the  work 
in  the  Magdalen  Chapel  to  an  assistant  who  had  already  aided  him  in  the 
Lower  Church  at  Assisi.  Such  is  Mr.  Berenson's  view.  ("Florentine 
Painters  of  the  Renaissance"  3rd  Ed.)  I  differ  from  him  only  in  the 
stronger  conviction  that  the  portraits  in  the  lower  rank  of  the  Paradise  were 
painted  by  Giotto  himself.    Even  the  radial  arrangement  of  this  throng  is 


From   Holbrook 

Fig.  6.    Kirkup's   small   color   sketch 

made  on  the  inside  vellum  cover 

of    his    copy    of    the    "Con- 

vivio,"    1521.      Historical 

Museum,  Florence. 


Fig.  7.    The  Arundel  Print. 


thoroughly  characteristic  of  Giotto,  being  like  that  in  the  famous  Baron- 
celli  altar-piece,  the  design  of  which,  at  least  should  be  Giotto's. 

Why  Giotto  painted  Dante  so  young  is  uncertain.  He  may  have  meant 
to  represent  a  soul  in  heaven  where  there  is  no  old  age.  He  might  have 
used  a  sketch  made  years  before.  Giotto  surely  saw  Dante  at  Padua  in 
1304-5  when  the  poet  was  forty,  and  probably  he  had  also  known  him  at 
Florence  some  ten  years  earlier.  In  the  interval  Giotto  had  been  working 
at  Assisi  and  Rome.  If  Giotto  had  a  sketch  for  this  portrait — and  we 
shall  see  that  it  is  probable  he  had — it  was  pretty  certainly  made  before  he 
left  Florence,  at  a  time  when  Dante  was  not  older  than  thirty,  and  just 
coming  into  prominence  as  a  politician  and  lyric  poet.  For  the  youthful 
appearance  of  Dante  Professor  Venturi  has  advanced  a  characteristically 
genial  hypothesis,  Storia,  vol.  V,  p.  448  f.     Since  Dante  had  been  banished 


10 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


under  penalty  of  death  in  1302,  it  was  unseemly  to  represent  him  in  a 
public  building  at  Florence  except  at  an  age  prior  to  his  condemnation. 
It  seems  strange  that  in  view  of  Dante's  rising  fame  the  old  ban  should  have 
held  fifteen  years  after  his  death  in  1321.  Yet  the  mediaeval  Florentines 
were  sturdy  haters,  and  may  well  have  hit  on  this  way  of  honoring  their 
poet  without  discrediting  their  own  act  of  proscription. 

Its  intrinsic  beauty  and  the  romance  of  its  discovery  have  made  Giotto's 
Dante  one  of  the  most  famous  portraits  in  the  world.  Somewhere  about 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  Palace  of  the  Podesta  became  a  prison, 
the  chapel  was  turned  into  a  storeroom  and  its  frescoes  whitewashed.  In 
1840  the  Piedmontese  patriot  and  refugee,  Aubrey  Bezzi,  with  the  Ameri- 


From    Holbrook 

Fig.  8.     Faltoni's   Copy   made   before 
the  Restoration. 


Fig.  9.    Giotto's    Dante    in   the    Bar- 
gello    as    repainted   by    Marini. 


can  man  of  letters,  Richard  Henry  Wilde,  and  an  eccentric  English  artist, 
Seymour  Kirkup,  joined  forces  to  uncover  the  portrait.  Bezzi  engineered 
the  difficult  formalities  with  the  Grand  Ducal  administration.  A  wretched 
painter-restorer  was  assigned  to  them,  one  Marini,  and  the  fading  frescoes 
of  the  chapel  everywhere  testify  to  the  brutality  with  which  he  did  his  job. 
At  length  they  found  the  portrait  minus  the  eye  through  ]\Iarini's  care- 
lessness. Soon  Marini  put  back  unskilfully  the  eye  he  had  already  put  out 
and  smeared  the  beautiful  face  with  unnecessary  and  disfiguring  repaints, 
altering  as  well  the  form  of  the  hood  for  good  measure  of  vandalism. 

Before  this  chagrin  befell  the  discoverers,  however,  Kirkup  had  saved 
the  day.  Foreseeing  the  restoration,  he  bribed  his  way  into  the  chapel  and 
made  two  copies  of  the  fresco.  One  was  a  tracing  on  mica,  the  other  a 
small  color  sketch  on  the  inside  vellum  cover  of  his  copy  of  Dante's  ''Con- 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  ii 

vivio"  (Fig.  6).  He  combined  these  copies  in  at  least  two  versions  (Fig, 
5),  one  of  which  was  carefully  facsimiled  in  lithography  for  the  Arundel 
Society  (Fig.  7).  This  is  the  standard  version  of  Giotto's  ''Dante." 
Kirkup  wrote  to  Gabriele  Rossetti  that  he  had  put  "nothing  of  my  own" 
into  these  copies,  and  Dante  lovers,  who  owe  him  an  inestimable  debt, 
will  take  his  word  for  it.  Moreover,  the  fidelity  of  Kirkup's  work  is  at- 
tested by  the  independent  copy  which  the  sculptor  Perseo  Faltoni  (Fig.  8) 
made  before  Marini  (Fig.  9)  had  defaced  the  portrait.  The  agreement  of 
Kirkup's  two  copies,  the  Arundel  Print  and  Faltoni's  copy  should  set  at 
rest  the  uneasiness  of  such  as  find  the  evidence  for  Giotto's  Dante  second- 
hand. Second-hand  it  is,  but  all  the  same  trustworthy,  as  the  reader  may 
judge  from  the  reproductions  here  supplied.  All  the  copies  have  a  slight 
error  in  representing  the  hood  as  light  with  a  red  reversed  band.  It  was 
once  uniformly  red,  as  Calvalcaselle  has  shown. ^  Marini  scraped  most 
of  the  red  off,  exposing  the  gray  preparation.  It  remains  only  to  say  that 
Marini's  repaints  could  probably  be  removed.  To  do  so  would  be  a  finer 
tribute  to  Dante  than  all  the  speechmaking  which  is  being  planned  for  the 
approaching  sixth  centenary  of  his  death. 

Giotto's  Dante  matches  so  closely  the  reconstruction  of  the  skull,  as  is 
shown  in  the  accompanying  plate  (Fig.  10),  that  we  may  suppose  it  to  have 
been  based  on  an  early  sketch  from  life.  It  is  a  most  precious  embodiment 
of  the  poet  of  the  "Vita  Nuova."  But  the  portrait,  though  famous  until 
Vasari's  time,  was  singularly  without  influence.  Only  two  or  three  Dante 
portraits  before  the  discovery  of  1840  show  a  trace  of  Giotto,  and  that 
doubtfully.  We  may  attribute  this  strange  case  partly  to  the  fact  that 
the  little  chapel  of  the  Podesta  was  not  a  place  of  public  worship  or  resort, 
partly  to  the  fact  that  people  habitually  thought  of  Dante  not  as  the  vision- 
ary young  lover  of  the  "Vita  Nuova"  but  as  the  austere  poet  of  the 
"Inferno."  Something  more  grim  than  Giotto's  Dante  was  expected,  and 
about  the  same  time  as  Giotto's  a  competing  portrait  of  the  desired  grim 
type  was  painted  by  Taddeo  Gaddi  in  one  of  the  most  popular  churches  of 
Florence,  Santa  Croce.  As  the  most  accessible  and  characteristic  likeness, 
it  naturally  became  the  source  of  all  subsequent  grim  Dantes. 

We  have,  I  shall  try  to  prove,  a  faithful  fifteenth  century  copy  of  Taddeo 
Gaddi's  Dante  in  a  miniature  prefixed  to  the  Palatine  Manuscript  No.  320 
of  the  Laurentian  Library.  (Frontispiece.)  This  miniature,  weakly 
drawn  with  a  pen  and  lightly  washed  with  color,  is  inserted  before  the 

*  "The  original  color  was  not  white  and  red,  and  this  is  obvious  from  a  close  inspection 
of  the  bag  and  of  the  repainted  red  part.  The  scraper,  in  removing  the  whitewash,  took 
out  the  color  of  a  portion  at  the  back  of  the  head  and  of  the  pendent  part,  which  may 
now  be  seen  gashed  by  the  razor;  but,  here  and  there,  a  red  spot  by  chance  remains  even 
in  the  pendent  portion,  showing  that  the  bonnet  was  red  all  over." 

Crowe  and  Cavalcaselle,  "A  History  of  Painting  in  Italy,"   (Hutton  Ed.)  Vol.  I,  p.  224. 


12  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

text  of  a  collection  of  Dante's  lyrics.  The  writing  is  not  earlier  than  1450. 
The  volume  belonged  to  Francesco  Sassetti,  treasurer  for  Lorenzo  the 
Magnificent.  Francesco  fled  from  Florence  in  1488,  and  as  early  as  1472 
had  a  considerable  library.  (H.  Hauvette,  "Ghirlandaio,"  Paris,  pp.  66,  ff.) 
The  manuscript  is  likely  to  have  been  purchased  by  the  latter  date.  It  cost 
ten  broad  gold  florins.  As  for  the  Miniature,  it  is  not  an  original  drawing 
but  a  weak  copy  of  something  else.    Those  who  have  had  experience  of  old 


Fig.  10.    The     Skull     (dotted     line) 

overlaid  on  Giotto's  Dante.    The 

fit  is   fair  but  the  nose  and 

eye  come  a  little  too  low. 


drawings  will  see  this  without  argument,  and  it  is  useless  to  labor  the  point 
with  others.  I  may  only  say  that  the  entirely  purposeless  character  of  the 
line,  which  cannot  be  matched  in  any  original  drawing  of  the  fourteenth  or 
fifteenth  centuries,  is  conclusive.  It  is  not  a  copy  of  a  Renaissance  original 
— for  that  it  shows  too  little  knowledge — ^but  of  a  Gothic  original.  On 
general  principles  it  is  likely  to  be  a  copy  of  the  most  famous  fourteenth 
century  portrait  of  Dante  in  Florence,  Taddeo  Gaddi's.  Elsewhere^  I 
have  tried  to  show  that  such  is  the  case,  and  have  now  only  to  develop  the 
proof  more  fully.    Quite  independently,  Parodi  and  Passerini  have  arrived 

5  In  the  Romanic  Review  for  1912,  page  119,  reviewing  Dr.  Holbrook's  book,  I  wrote  of 
the  Palatine  Miniature : 

"The  drawing  is  palpably  a  true  copy  of  a  fourteenth  century  original.  It  has  distinct 
characteristics  of  Taddeo  Gaddi's  manner  and  should  be  a  true  sketch  copy  of  that 
famous  portrait  which  he  painted  in  a  Franciscan  miracle  on  the  choir-screen  of  the 
church  of  Santa  Croce." 

The  same  year,  before  my  review  reached  him,  Parodi,  in  the  Marsocco  for  July  28, 
in  an  article  called  "I  Ritratti  di  Dante,"  expressed  the  same  view  more  cautiously  as 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


13 


i 

^'  '^ /^^:i-' 

\      \ 

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14 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


at  the  same  conclusion.  As  long  as  1897  Franz  Xaver  Kraus  (p.  177)  was 
near  the  truth  when  he  declared  the  Palatine  Miniature  represented  a  lost 
original  which  is  the  source  of  most  of  the  grim  Dantes.  That  the  Palatine 
Miniature,  or  rather  its  original,  is  by  Taddeo  Gaddi,  is  more  positively 
suggested  by  its  peculiar  artistic  defects.  It  is  a  poor  thing,  but  a  poor 
thing  of  considerable  character.  Its  chief  fault  is  the  absurdly  short  meas- 
ure of  the  head.    Many  painters  of  the  first  half  of  the  fourteenth  century 


Fig.  14.    The     Skull     (dotted     line) 

overlaid  on   the    Palatine   Dante. 

The  fit  is  close  except  for  the 

absurd     proportions     of 

the  top  and  back  of 

the   head   in   the 

Palatine. 


shared  this  fault,  but  none  save  Taddeo  Gaddi,  so  far  as  I  know,  exagger- 
ated it  to  the  extent  that  we  find  in  this  copy.  My  plates  (Figs.  11,  12,  13) 
which  show  alongside  the  Palatine  Miniature  two  heads  from  Taddeo 
Gaddi's  frescoes  in  the  Baroncelli  Chapel,  in  Santa  Croce,  make  the  case 

follows :  "E  lecito  immaginare  che  la  Miniatura  Palatina  abbia  avuto,  non  diro  per 
originale  ma  per  punto  di  partenza  il  ritratto  di  Gaddi." 

("It  is  permissible  to  imagine  that  the  Palatine  Miniature  had,  I  will  not  say  as  its 
original  but  as  its  point  of  departure,  the  portrait  by  Gaddi.")  Parodi  maintained  the 
same  position  in  his  elaborate  and  instructive  review  of  Holbrook  and  myself  in  the 
Bulletino  della  Societa  Dantesca  Italiana  N.S.  Vol.  XIX.  (1912),  pp.  88-106. 

Passerini  in  his  recent  brochure,  "II  Ritratto  di  Dante,"  pp.  11-13,  takes  the  same 
position  with  more  emphasis,  apparently  without  knowledge  of  my  review  of  Holbrook, 
which  he  does  not  cite. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  have  the  confirmation  of  these  learned  and  distinguished  Italian  col- 
leagues. As  for  the  identity  of  Gaddi's  portrait  and  the  Palatine  miniature,  the  newly 
applied  evidence  of  the  skull  brings  something  like  objective  demonstration  to  what  in 
191 2  was  only  an  intuition  in  style  and  in  historic  probability. 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  15 

clear.  We  have  to  do  then  with  a  very  faithful  copy  of  the  most  promi- 
nent Dante  portrait  in  Florence  and  with  the  fountain  head  of  the  grim 
tradition.  Despite  its  artistic  defects,  it  is  the  indispensable  document. 
Overlaying  the  skull  plan  on  it  (Fig.  14),  we  find  the  fit  is  precise.  Only 
the  nose  bone  of  the  skull  projects  too  much,  and  here  surely  the  recon- 
struction, which  rests  on  measurements,  is  more  correct  than  the  portrait. 
The  correspondence  is  more  exact  than  it  is  in  Giotto's  portrait,  and  here 
is  the  reason  for  denying  the  theory  sometimes  advanced  that  the  Palatine 
Miniature  is  based  on  Giotto.  For  the  matter  of  that  it  represents  a  more 
emaciated  and  an  older  man,  not  a  man  in  the  twenties,  but  in  the  late 
thirties  or  the  forties. 

We  must  next  ask  what  chance  Taddeo  Gaddi  would  have  had  of  mak- 
ing or  consulting  a  life  portrait  of  Dante,  for  this  portrait  ultimately  rests 
on  an  accurate  study  of  Dante's  features.  Born  about  1300,  Taddeo  Gaddi 
was  Giotto's  godson,  and  for  twenty-four  years  his  assistant,  and  finally 
his  artistic  executor.  Presumably  he  served  Giotto  in  the  last  twenty-four 
years  of  the  master's  activity,  from  13 12,  when  Giotto  after  a  long  absence 
registered  in  the  Painters'  Guild  at  Florence,  to  1337,  when  Giotto  died. 
We  know  little  of  Giotto's  movements  during  this  period  save  that  after 
1328  he  was  for  some  time  at  Naples.  But  Vasari  tells  that  Giotto  worked 
at  Verona,  Padua,  Ferrara,  Ravenna,  and  elsewhere  in  the  north,  also  spe- 
cifically that  Giotto  visited  Dante  at  Ravenna.®  Dante  was  at  Ravenna 
from  about  13 19  to  his  death  in  1321.  Before  that,  he  was  some  years  at 
Verona.  It  is  possible  enough  that  Giotto  accompanied  by  his  young  as- 
sistant saw  Dante  between  13 12  and  1321  and  that  young  Taddeo  then 
drew  his  feeble  but  faithful  sketch  of  the  poet.     The  probabilities  are  that 

^  Giotto,  writes  Vasari,  after  a  long  absence  returned  to  Florence  in  1316  (the  real 
date  being  1312). 

"But  he  was  not  allowed  to  stay  long  in  Florence,  because,  brought  to  Padua  by  means 
of  the  Lords  of  the  Scala  family,  he  painted  in  Sant'  Antonio,  ...  a  very  beautiful 
chapel.  From  there  he  went  to  Verona,  where  for  Messer  Can  Grande  he  made  some 
pictures  in  his  palace  .  .  .  When  these  works  were  completed,  in  returning  to  Tuscany 
he  had  to  stop  at  Ferrara,  and  he  painted  in  the  service  of  the  Este  Lords.  .  .  .  Mean- 
while, when  it  came  to  the  ears  of  Dante,  Florentine  poet,  that  Giotto  was  at  Ferrara, 
he  managed  that  he  should  be  brought  to  Ravenna,  where  he  himself  was  in  exile;  and 
he  had  him  make  in  the  Church  of  San  Francesco  for  the  Polenta  Lords  some  stories 
around  the  church  which  are  excellent." 

Translated  from  Milanesi's  edition.  Vol.  I,  p.  388. 

Of  course  it  is  wholly  the  fashion  to  discard  all  unsubstantiated  statements  of  Vasari, 
but  this  is  as  uncritical  as  was  the  earlier  fashion  of  accepting  him  in  toto.  Vasari's 
statement  begins  with  a  fact — that  Giotto  painted  in  the  Santo  at  Padua,  why  should  we 
suppose  that  it  ends  with  a  shameless  fabrication?  In  short  it  is  likely  enough  that  Giotto 
and  Taddeo  Gaddi  met  Dante  in  1319  or  a  little  earlier  at  Ravenna,  and  equally  possible 
that  the  meeting  was  still  earlier  at  Verona.  The  Palatine  Miniature  suggests  a  man 
rather  under  than  over  fifty,  the  age  which  Dante  reached  in  1315. 


i6 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


the  meeting  would  have  been  not  very  late  within  this  span,  for  Dante, 
who  lost  his  teeth  in  his  old  age,  is  not  represented  as  toothless.  Mere 
possibilities  these! — the  sceptical  reader  will  remark.  All  that  is  important 
is  that  whoever  drew  the  original  of  the  Palatine  Miniature  had  before  him 
a  head  and  face  the  measurements  of  which  very  closely  correspond  with 
those  made  on  Dante's  skull.  Who  made  the  original  drawing  is  of  small 
account.  Taddeo  Gaddi  himself  is  the  best  guess,  for  a  superior  work 
would  have  kept  something  of  its  quality  even  under  his  slack  transcription. 
Just  when  Taddeo  painted  the  portrait  is  uncertain.  From  1332  to  1338 
he  was  working  on  the  Life  of  the  Virgin  in  the  Baroncelli  Chapel.     Lor- 


FiG.  15.     The       Palatine      Miniature 
(dotted   line)    overlaid   on   Giotto's 
Dante.     The  fit  of  the   faces  is 
close,  though  Giotto  has  some- 
what extended  the  nose  at  the 
expense  of  the  other   fea- 
tures.     The    comparison 
shows     strikingly     the 
false   proportions    of 
the    back-head    of 
the  Palatine. 


enzo  Ghiberti  in  his  Commentaries  tells  us  this  about  the  Dante  portrait: 
Taddeo  "painted  in  the  Church  of  Santa  Croce  about  the  middle  of  the 
church  the  miracle  of  the  resuscitated  boy.  There  is  the  figure  of  Dante 
Alighieri,  where  there  are  together  three  figures  taken  from  life,  and  his 
is  the  middle  one.  They  are  standing."  The  lines  cutting  off  the  Palatine 
bust  at  the  lower  left  suggest  that  it  was  taken  from  a  standing  figure, 
Vasari  says  in  his  first  edition  that  the  two  other  figures  were  Giotto  and 
the  poet  Guido  Cavalcanti;  in  his  second,  that  some  say  the  third  figure 
was  Taddeo  himself.  The  subject  was  a  natural  sequel  to  Giotto's  Mira- 
cles of  St.  Francis  in  the  Bardi  Chapel,  which  were  done  no  later  than  1328 
and  probably  some  years  earlier.  Taddeo's  work  in  continuation  is  likely 
to  have  followed  his  master's  closely.  In  that  case  his  portrait  of  Dante 
will  have  been  painted  some  ten  years  before  Giotto's. 

Giotto's  and  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portraits  differ  greatly  in  expression  but 
are  very  similar  in  proportions  as  may  be  shown  by  overlaying  one  on  the 
other  (Fig,  15).  Giotto  slightly  shortens  the  upper  lip  and  raises  the  in- 
dentation above  the  nose  making  that  feature  longer  in  span.     The  differ- 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


17 


ences,  on  the  scale  of  life  would  be  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch  in  the  upper 
and  an  eighth  in  the  lower  discrepancy — enough  to  discredit  the  view  that 
the  Palatine  Miniature  was  copied  from  Giotto's  Dante. 

If  additional  confirmation  of  the  view  that  the  Palatine  is  the  sole  author- 
ity for  the  looks  of  Dante  in  maturity  be  needed,  it  can  be  furnished  by  a 
novel  experiment. 

When  I  reconstructed  the  skull,  I  intended  to  use  it  only  as  a  check  on 
the  portraits.  But  when  the  outline  lay  clear  before  me,  I  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  to  add  features.  In  so  doing  I  tried  to  work  objectively, 
disregarding  all  the  portraits.     The  result  was  appallingly  like  the  Palatine 


Fig.  16.  Fig.  17.  Fig.  18. 

The  Palatme  Miniature   (Fig.   18)   compared  with  two  Reconstructions  traced  upon  the 

Skull  by  two  artists  who  did  not  know  the  Skull  was  Dante's. 

Miniature.  Naturally  I  attributed  this  to  unconscious  "wishful  thinking," 
for  I  already  believed  the  Palatine  portrait  to  be  the  most  accurate.  So  I 
again  repeated  the  experiment  with  two  of  my  colleagues,  with  the  same 
result.  But  they  knew  they  were  working  on  the  plan  of  Dante's  skull, 
and,  though  both  were  ignorant  of  the  Palatine  portrait,  might  again  have 
unconsciously  echoed  the  very  similar  traditional  type  represented  by  the 
Naples  Bust.  Evidently  the  crucial  experiment  must  be  with  men  who  did 
not  realize  that  Dante  was  in  any  way  in  question.  Accordingly  I  asked 
a  painter  and  a  sculptor  to  trace  features  upon  the  skull,  merely  saying 
that  the  face  should  be  thin,  the  eye  large  and  the  lower  lip  projecting 
(Figs.  16,  17).  The  accessories,  cap  and  ear-tabs,  were  added  only  after 
the  face  had  been  drawn.  These  reconstructions  naturally  differ,  but  both 
have  a  strong  family  likeness  and  both  resemble  the  Palatine  Miniature  more 
than  any  other  portrait.  We  seem  then  to  have  a  nice  cross  verification  both 
of  the  rightness  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  skull  and  of  the  authority  of  the 
Palatine  portrait  (Fig.  18).     It  has  seemed  unfair  to  these  artist  friends 


i8  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

to  make  them  responsible  for  these  casual  sketches,  and  unfair  to  the  reader 
to  tamper  with  the  evidence ;  so  I  take  occasion  to  thank  Messrs.  Augustus 
Vincent  Tack  and  Mahonri  Young,  for  their  kindness  and  leave  to  the 
reader  the  by  no  means  uninteresting  critical  game  of  guessing  who  did 
which  drawing. 

The  development  of  the  still  older,  sterner  and  more  artistic  portraits 
of  Dante  from  Taddeo  Gaddi's  crude  but  faithful  likeness  is  another  story 
which  I  will  soon  try  to  tell.  Most  of  it  is  accessible  enough  in  Dr.  Hol- 
brook's  excellent  book.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  Gaddi's  Dante  held  its 
place  on  or  near  the  choir  screen  of  Santa  Croce  until,  in  1566,  Vasari 
ruthlessly  modernized  the  old  Franciscan  church.  Two  years  before  the 
demolition,  at  Michelangelo's  funeral,  among  the  decorations  was  a  portrait 
of  Giotto  holding  in  his  hands  the  head  of  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portrait  of 
Dante  (Vasari,  Vol.  VII,  p.  307).  The  nameless  artist  was  pardonably 
muddled  as  to  the  painter,  but  in  the  straight  Florentine  tradition  as  regards 
the  choice  of  type.  For  over  two  centuries  Florence  had  regarded  Taddeo's 
likeness  as  the  standard,  and  Florence  was  right. 

The  up-shot  of  this  chapter  is  twofold.  Giotto's  Dante  in  the  Bargello 
must  be  regarded  as  an  idealization  based  on  a  sketch  from  life;  Taddeo 
Gaddi's  as  an  uninspired  but  very  faithful  rendering  of  ^ro+trr's  features  in 
his  maturity.  The  modern  artist  who  wishes  to  do  a  Dante  should  consult 
the  Palatine  Miniature  and  the  reconstruction  of  the  skull.  Finally  we 
should  be  most  grateful  to  that  fourth-rate  and  nameless  draughtsman  of 
the  fifteenth  century  who  preserved  for  us  the  only  portrait  which  tells  us 
what  Dante  really  looked  like. 


XV^^ 


CHAPTER  TWO 
OTHER  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY  PORTRAITS 


CHAPTER  TWO 

OTHER  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY  PORTRAITS 

Orcagna's  Toothless  Dante.     An  Alleged  Dante  at  Ra- 
venna AS  Source  of  the  Tomb  Relief.    Ugguccione  Bambag- 
LiOLi's  Sketch. 

Finding  portraits  of  Dante  in  fourteenth  century  frescoes  is  so  facile  an 
indoor  sport  that  the  list  is  notable  and  increasing.  Wherever  an  old  face 
under  the  familiar  tailed  cap  and  ear-tabs  appears,  the  intelligent  tourist 
exclaims  "How  like  Dante !"  And  many  scholars  who  should  have  known 
better  have  yielded  to  this  impulse.  Thus  we  have  alleged  Dantes  at 
Verona,  Ravenna,  Rimini,  Siena,  Florence  and  Assisi,  to  go  no  further. 
Now  of  course  the  tailed  cap  with  a  white  under-cap  showing  ear-tabs  was 
common  wear  from  before  1300  to  nearly  1400.  Since  the  material  may 
be  found  in  Holbrook  and  Passerini  it  does  not  seem  necessary  to  con- 
sider all  these  doubtful  identifications.  I  shall  limit  myself  to  such  as 
seem  to  me  to  have  a  chance  to  be  right. 

Far  the  most  impressive  of  these  portraits  is  by  Andrea  Orcagna  or 
Nardo  his  brother.  The  old  and  modern  critics  differ  as  to  a  point  that  can 
never  be  settled.  In  the  Strozzi  Chapel,  in  Santa  Maria  Novella,  there  is 
a  Last  Judgment  on  the  window  wall.  Below  the  great  Christ,  at  the  spec- 
tator's left,  a  worn  and  ecstatic  old  face  looks  upward  from  a  group  of 
theologians  and  poets  (Fig.  19).  None  of  the  early  writers  mentions  this 
haggard  head  as  a  Dante  portrait,  but  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  modern 
scholars  have  been  discovering  and  rediscovering  it  (Holbrook,  pp.  161  f.). 
•We  know  from  Vasari  that  Orcagna  was  "most  studious  of  Dante,"  and 
the  Inferno  in  the  same  chapel,  which  was  unquestionably  composed  under 
Orcagna's  direction,  follows  circle  by  circle  and  holgia  by  holgia  the  topog- 
raphy of  the  "Divine  Comedy."  Hence  it  is  highly  probable  that  we  have 
to  do  with  the  portrait  of  our  poet.  The  head  has  certain  marked  peculiari- 
ties, though  generally  it  appears  to  follow  the  version  of  Taddeo  Gaddi.  It 
is  much  older  than  the  man  in  the  Palatine  Miniature,  the  cap  is  peaked 
up  in  front — a  feature  which  we  shall  later  find  in  the  Naples  Bust — the 
ear-tabs  are  small  and  instead  of  hanging  loose  are  tied  under  the  chin. 
This  trait  prevails  generally  in  the  miniatured  manuscripts  of  Dante  and 
in  most  of  the  three-quarters  portraits.  A  more  remarkable  peculiarity  is 
that  the  mouth  is  toothless,  or  at  least  the  upper  jaw,  so  that  the  lower  lip 


22  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

slips  well  behind  and  inside  of  the  upper.  When  we  remember  that  Dante 
was  toothless  in  his  last  years,  as  the  skull  attests,  there  is  a  temptation  to 
hope  that  a  third  genuine  portrait  underlies  Orcagna's.  Born  about  1308, 
and  never  so  far  as  we  know  in  Northern  Italy,  it  is  virtually  impossible 
that  Orcagna  should  ever  have  seen  the  poet.  What  is  likely  is  that  he 
merely  made  Gaddi's  portrait  older,  and  intelligently  added  traits  which 
he  had  from  oral  tradition.     Since  the  portrait  has  great  intensity  of  char- 


FiG,  19.     Dante    from    Orcagna's    fresco   of    the    Last   Judgment   in   the 
Strozzi  Chapel,  Sta.  Maria  Novella. 

acter  and  seems  to  have  served  as  inspiration  both  for  Raphael  and  his 
unknown  contemporary  who  modelled  the  Naples  Bust,  the  student  can- 
not neglect  it.  It  anticipates  the  conception  of  Dante  as  haggard  and 
tragic  which  ruled  in  the  Renaissance.  And  if  Raphael  and  the  maker  of 
the  Naples  Bust  took  Orcagna's  yearning  type  for  a  Dante,  why  should 
we  be  ashamed  to  imitate  them? 

In  the  same  chapel,  in  the  Paradiso,  under  the  great  throne  at  the  left, 
is  a  forceful  young  face  with  the  familiar  attributes  (Fig.  20).  While  it 
is  not  far  from  the  true  proportions,  it  seems  to  me  rather  a  generalized 
Gothic  type  than  surely  a  portrait  of  any  one.  The  upward  cut  of  the  base 
of  the  nose  is  entirely  unlike  that  of  any  Dante  in  the  true  tradition.  It 
resembles  alleged  Dantes  at  Siena  and  Rimini  which  may  be  consulted  in 
Passerini  and  Holbrook.     I  reproduce  this  portrait  merely  to  show  how 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


23 


seductive  these  casual  attributions  are.  The  Strozzi  chapel  was  decorated 
after  1354.  Quite  apart  from  the  Dante  portrait,  its  frescoed  decorations 
with  the  Last  Judgment,  Heaven  and  Hell,  make  it  the  most  Dantesque  in- 
terior in  the  world. 

In  the  same  decade  Andrea  Bonaiuti  was  covering  the  chapter  house  of 
the  same  church,  later  called  the  Spanish  Chapel,  with  the  most  elaborate 
Dominican  allegories.  Here  plausible  Dantes  so  abound  that  the  critics 
have  been  moderate  indeed  in  fixing  the  name  only  upon  the  bent,  writing 
figure  which  sits  at  the  feet  of  the  impersonation  of  Grammar.     There  is 


Fig.  20.    Alleged    Portrait   of   Dante 

from  the  fresco  of  the  Paradise 

by    Nardo    di    Gone    in    the 

Strozzi     Chapel,      Sta. 

Maria  Novella. 


Fig.  21.    Dante(?)       from      Andrea 

Bonaiuti's    fresco    of    the    Church 

Militant   in   the    Spanish  Chapel, 

Sta.   Maria  Novella. 


not  much  for  the  identification.  The  scribe  resembles  the  true  portraits 
in  no  way,  and  the  traditional  champion  of  Grammar  should  in  any  case  be 
Priscian  or  Donatus.  If  there  is  a  Dante  in  the  Spanish  Chapel,  it  is, 
I  think,  the  hooded  figure  facing  towards  the  Emperor,  among  his  cham- 
pions, from  the  right,  near  an  ermined  justice  (Fig.  21).  As  the  author 
of  the  "De  Monarchia"  Dante  would  have  deserved  such  a  position,  and  by 
1360  or  so  the  pious  Dominicans  may  have  forgotten  or  ignored  the  fact 
that  some  thirty  years  earlier,  in  1329,  the  treatise  on  the  monarchy  had 
been  condemned  and  burned  as  an  heretical  book.  Such  possibilities  are 
alluring,  but,  in  the  absence  of  the  traditional  headgear  of  Dante,  should 
not  be  insisted  on.  If  a  Dante,  it  is  one  of  the  few  that  rest  upon  Giotto's 
portrait. 

In  January  of  1920  the  friars  of  San  Francesco  at  Ravenna  removed  the 
whitewash  from  two  frescoes^  in  which  they  recognized  Dante's  portrait. 


^  The  reader  is  referred  to  Michele  Barbi's  cautious  and  thorough  discussion  of  these 


24 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


In  one  case  he  appears  as  a  witness  of  the  crucifixion  and  the  other  as  a 
pensive  seated  figure  with  hand  on  chin  apparently  reading  intently  before 
a  lectern  (Fig.  22).  The  latter  fresco  is  near  the  side  door  that  opens  into 
the  little  graveyard  where  Dante's  tomb  originally  stood.     Pietro  Lom- 


FiG.  22.     Fresco     by     Giovanni     Baronzio     of 
Rimini,  before  1350,  recently  uncovered  in 
the  Church  of  S.  Francesco,  Ravenna. 
May  have  been   intended  to   rep- 
resent   Dante,   but    is    not    a 
portrait. 


Fig.  23.    Marble  Relief  made 

in    1483    by    Pietro    Lom- 

bardi  for  Dante's  Tomb 

at  Ravenna. 


bardi  who  enclosed  the  sarcophagus  with  a  shrine  and  provided  a  por- 
trait relief  in  1483  clearly  believed  this  fresco  to  be  a  Dante,  for  he 
adopted  its  pose  for  his  sculpture  (Fig.  23).  Both  the  relief  and  the 
(fresco  are  characterless  and  far  from  the  good  tradition.  The  same 
painter,  Giovanni  Baronzio  of  Rimini,  according  to  Mr.  Berenson  (per- 

portraits  in  "Studi  Danteschi,"  Florence,  1920,  Vol.  I,  pp.  ii3ff.  Here  also  is  the  bibli- 
ography. With  Barbi's  skeptical  conclusions  I  entirely  agree,  but  it  seems  to  me  he 
minimizes  unduly  the  relation  between  the  seated  "Dante"  and  Pietro  Lombardi's  relief 
(pp.  121  f.). 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


25 


sonal  communication),  repeated  the  figure  in  Santa  Maria  in  Porto  outside 
of  Ravenna.  The  same  face  and  figure  now  represent  Anti-Christ,  which 
is  perhaps  a  sufficient  commentary  upon  their  value  as  portraiture.  (See 
Abb.  I.  in  A.  Brach,  "Giotto's  Schule  in  Romagna,"  Strassburg  1902.) 

We  must  deeply  regret  the  loss  of  frescoed  portraits  of  Dante  and 
Petrarch  by  Lorenzo  Monaco.  Vasari  places  them  in  an  Ardinghelli  Chapel 
in  the  Trinita.  Milanesi  (Vol.  II.  p.  20,  n.  i),  thinks  they  were  rather  in 
a  chapel  of  the  same  family  in  the  Carmine.  Their  date  will  have  been  not 
far  from  1400.  Probably,  since  character  was  not  Lorenzo's  forte,  these 
were  rather  fine  works  of  idealistic  Gothic  painting  than  fine  portraits. 

With  the  exception  of  the  illustrated  manuscripts,  which  are  of  small 


>'/.V 


v-^ 


:ci 


Fig.  24.    Dante (?). 


Fig.  25.     Bologna    Grassa. 


Sketches  by  Ugguccione  Bambaglioli,  Notary  of  Bologna,  between  two 

Documents  of   1323.     These  possibly  represent  Dante  receiving 

the  Poet's  Laurel  from  Bologna. 

importance  and  may  best  be  separately  treated,  this  closes  our  Gothic  chap- 
ter. I  may,  before  passing  to  the  next  century,  mention  a  fascinating  pos- 
sibility of  a  sketch  done  shortly  after  Dante's  death. 

Among  the  notarial  records  of  Ser  Ugguccione  Bambaglioli  of  Bologna, 
in  the  narrow  space  between  two  documents  of  1323  (two  years  after 
Dante's  death)  is  lightly  sketched  a  curious  scene  of  a  Coronation.  A 
very  fat  woman  in  the  right  hand  margin  offers  a  wreath  to  a  figure  kneel- 
ing in  the  left  hand  margin  (Figs.  24,  25).  The  little  kneeling  figure  is 
fairly  Dantesque.  The  draughtsman  was  a  fellow  townsman,  kinsman,  and 
associate  of  Ser  Grazioli  Bambaglioli,  one  of  the  earliest  commentators  of 
Dante.  In  13 19  Giovanni  del  Virgilio  had  invited  Dante  to  come  and  re- 
ceive the  laurel  at  Bologna  (see  note  i).  The  fat  figure  is  probably  the 
traditional  Bologna  grassa  crowning  some  one.  This  circumstantial  chain 
is  developed  with  charm  and  modesty  by  Giovanni  Livi  in  the  Nuova 


26  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

Antologia  for  April  i,  1904.  He  imagines  Ser  Ugguccione  in  an  idle  mo- 
ment thinking  of  a  laureation  that  ought  to  have  been  and  scribbling  in 
the  scene  between  documents.  I  reproduce  the  tiny  and  spirited  sketches 
enlarged  to  two  diameters,  not  wishing  to  omit  what  may  be,  however 
negligible  as  portraiture,  the  earliest  extant  representation  of  the  poet.  I 
may  add  that  the  abbreviation  Ug^  above  the  kneeling  figure  is  probably 
neither  Ugguccione's  signature  nor  yet  a  label  implying  that  he  himself 
ought  to  be  crowned.  It  is,  I  believe,  simply  the  catch-word  for  the  fol- 
lowing document,  which  begins  "Ugolinus." 


CHAPTER  THREE 

THE   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY,   THE   ICONOGRAPHIC   TRADI- 
TION AND  ITS  GROWTH 


CHAPTER  THREE 


THE   FIFTEENTH   CENTURY,   THE   ICONOGRAPHIC   TRADI- 
TION AND  ITS  GROWTH 

The  Three  Iconographical  Traditions.  Traces  of  Giot- 
to's Dante.  The  Gaddi  Portrait.  Palatine  Miniature  as 
Source  of  the  Grim  Dantes,  Modified  in  the  Riccardian. 
Faithfully  Transmitted  in  the  Naples  Bust.  The  Riccar- 
dian Portrait  Possibly  a  Replica  of  the  Lost  Portrait  of 
1429.    Source  of  the  Medal  and  Death-Mask. 

Whoever  has  seen  a  great  collection  of  portraits  of  a  historic  person,  say 
a  Washington  or  Franklin,  will  have  been  amazed  at  the  variety  of  ex- 
pression and  physiognomy.  On  the  contrary,  the  accessories  of  costume 
and  equipment  are  singularly  uniform.  Thus  in  tracing  the  genealogy  of 
portraits  buttons  are  often  more  important  than  eyes.  The  study  of  such 
fixed  traits  is  called  iconography.  I  wish  to  trace  the  early  iconographical 
tradition  of  the  three  oldest  portraits  of  Dante — Giotto's,  Taddeo  Gaddi's 
and  Orcagna's.  The  distinguishing  traits  may  best  be  presented  in  tabu- 
lar form. 


Giotto  in  the  Bargello 
Kirkiip's  Copy 

i)   An  ample  hood. 


2)  A  white  under-cap 
shows  obtuse  rounded 
tabs  over  the  ears,  nq 
ties. 

3)  Cassock  has  lapels. 

4)  Hair  is  hidden. 


5)  Upper  lip  is  short. 

6)  Nose  is  aquiline. 


Taddeo    Gaddi   in   Santa 

Croce 

( Palatine  Miniature  ) 

i)   A  cap  with  a  pointed 

tail  hanging  behind. 


2)  White  cap  has  acute 
angled  tabs  from 
which  ties  hang  loose. 

3)  Lapels  (from  Giotto). 

4)  Hair  shows  at  three 
points :  at  forehead, 
before  ears,  and  in 
tuft  at  nape  of  neck. 

5)  Upper  lip  is  long. 


6)   Nose    breaks 
angle. 

29 


at    an 


Orcagna  in  Santa  Maria 
Novella 

i)  A  cap  cocked  out  in 
front,  the  baggy  tail 
falling  somewhat  fore- 
ward. 

2)  Acute  angled  tabs  tied 
under  chin. 


3)  No  lapels. 

4)  Hair  shows  at  two 
points  before  and  be- 
hind ear  tabs. 

5)  Upper  lip  is  short, 
mouth  toothless. 

6)  Nose  aquiline. 


30  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

Of  these  traits  numbers  one  to  four  are  most  important  for  classifying 
derivatives,  particularly  number  two,  the  form  of  the  ear-tabs  and  dispo- 
sition of  the  strings.  The  tradition  of  Giotto  is  singularly  sterile.  In  his 
own  century  I  detect  no  influence  of  his  delightful  portrait  unless  it  be  in 
a  figure  by  Andrea  Bonaiuti  in  the  Spanish  Chapel  (Fig.  21).  This  head 
is  similar  to  Giotto's  Dante  both  in  form  and  in  the  ideality  of  its  senti- 
ment.    But  it  may  not  be  a  Dante  at  all.     In  the  fifteenth  century  I  find 


Fig.  26.     Dante  by  or  after  Vasari,  date  after  1544,  in  the  L.  E.  Holden 
Collection,  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Cleveland,  O. 

the  trace  of  Giotto  only  in  a  rather  nondescript  miniature  portrait  adorn- 
ing the  great  initial  N  of  a  vellum  copy  of  Landino's  edition  of  the  "Di- 
vine Comedy,"  dated  1481.  The  volume  is  in  the  Magliabecchiana  at  Flor- 
ence, and  the  portrait  has  been  well  reproduced  in  color  as  the  frontispiece 
to  Dr.  Holbrook's  volume.  Only  the  youthfulness  of  the  face  and  the 
short  rounded  forms  of  the  ear-tabs  associate  it  with  Giotto's  Dante.  Were 
it  detached  from  its  text,  no  one  would  suspect  that  Dante  was  the  person 
represented. 

Probably  Giorgio  Vasari  had  Giotto's  version  in  mind  when  in  1544 
he  painted  Dante  with  his  fellow  poets,  Guido  Cavalcanti,  Cino  of  Pistoia, 
Guittone  d'Arezzo,  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio.  Vasari  tells  us  that  the  heads 
were  "taken  accurately  from  the  early  copies,"  and  that  many  copies  of 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


31 


his  group  were  made.  In  the  latter  statement,  at  least,  he  seems  to  have 
been  correct,  for  a  copy  of  this  group  was  in  the  Orleans  Gallery,  and  a 
somewhat  larger  one,  sometime  in  the  Imperial  Austrian  collections,  now 
hangs  on  the  chimney  piece  of  the  Senior  Common  Room  at  Oriel  Col- 
lege, Oxford  (Holbrook,  p.  157  f.)-  Through  the  courtesy  of  the  Cleveland 
Art  Museum  I  am  able  to  offer  an  unpublished  variant  of  Vasari's  Dante 
(Fig.  26).  It  has  been  somewhat  rearranged  and  the  ear-tabs  changed 
to  a  longer  form  like  those  in  Raphael's  Dantes.  The  pose  of  Dante  in  the 
original  group  may,  as  Dr.  Holbrook  suggests,  have  been  borrowed  frora 
Signorelli's  Dante  at  Orvieto.     But  the  relative  youthfulness  of  the  face, 


Fig.  27.    Drawing   formerly  ascribed 

to  Gaddo  Gaddi  in  the  Library  of 

Christ  Church,  Oxford.   Date 

about  1400,  identification 

as  a  Dante  uncertain. 


By   permission   of  the   Corporation 


its  soft  expression,  aquiline  nose,  and  form  of  ear-tabs  (in  the  Oriel  ver- 
sion) betray  Giotto  as  the  chief  inspiration.  The  Cleveland  Dante,  which  is 
not  much  later  than  1550,  is  a  careful  example  of  the  bad,  sleek  execution 
of  the  time,  and  if  not  by  Vasari  himself,  is  at  least  a  contemporary  ver- 
sion of  his  type. 

From  now  on  for  nearly  three  hundred  years  Giotto's  Dante  is  completely 
forgotten,  and  even  since  its  discovery  in  1840  it  has,  outside  the  inner 
circle  of  Dante  lovers,  been  singularly  neglected.  The  book  publishers  have 
continued  to  prefer  the  inferior  types  drawn  from  sixteenth  century  origi- 
nals or  from  Marini's  restoration. 

Virtually  all  the  Dante  portraits  of  any  character  descend  directly  from 
Taddeo  Gaddi's.  The  endeavor  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  either  to  make 
three-quarter  aspects  out  of  the  original  profile,  in  which  process  much 
character  was  lost,  or  to  create  an  older  and  more  austere  type  of  profile. 
Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  and  earliest  of  these  derivatives  is  a  sadly 
rubbed  and  retouched  drawing  in  the  famous  Christ  Church  collection 
(No.  V.  i)  at  Oxford.     Through  the  kind  permission  of  the  Corporation 


32  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

I  am  here  able  to  publish  it  for  the  first  time  (Fig.  27).  In  general  it 
seems  to  follow  the  lines  of  the  Palatine  Miniature,  but  the  brow  is  bulged 
and  the  forehead  sloped  back.  One  might  suspect  that  some  old  version 
different  from  Taddeo  Gaddi's  underlay  this  grim  portrait.  Against  that 
is  the  good  and  relatively  modern  indication  of  the  eye.  No  real  Gothic 
painter  did  ihe  thing  so  well.  Iconographically  it  is  unique.  Instead  of 
the  hood  or  Phrygian  cap,  we  have  the  loose  turban  common  from  1400. 
The  ear-tabs  oddly  combine  all  the  early  types.  We  have  the  rounded  form 
of  Giotto  covered  with  the  sharp  points  of  Taddeo  Gaddi,  which  are 
fastened  under  the  chin  as  in  Orcagna.  It  is  this  which  makes  me  pretty 
sure  that  we  have  to  do  after  all  with  a  composite  Dante  and  not  with  a 
portrait  of  some  unknown  fifteenth  century  Florentine  of  Dantesque  look. 
The  drawing  belonged  to  Carlo  Ridolfi,  the  historian  of  Venetian  paint- 
ing, who  died  in  1648,  and  bears  a  worthless  eighteenth  century  ascription 
to  Gaddo  Gaddi,  Taddeo's  father.  On  its  face,  the  work  is  that  of  a  Flor- 
entine trained  in  the  Gothic  technique  but  commanding  something  of  the 
new  knowledge  of  the  Renaissance.  As  work  it  could  hardly  be  earlier 
than  1 410  or  later  than  1440.  In  the  whole  matter  we  are  frankly  in  a 
field  of  uncertainty,  and  there  is  no  reason  apart  from  its  strongly  Dan- 
tesque look  and  the  slight  circumstantial  evidence  given  above  for  calling 
this  portrait  a  Dante. 

We  rejoin  the  true  iconographic  tradition  with  the  frontispiece  of  the 
Riccardian  Manuscript  1040  (Fig.  28),  and  here  we  also  find  the  first 
Renaissance  Dante.  The  manuscript  is  a  small  in-folio  written  on  paper 
and  containing  a  selection  of  Dante's  lyrics  with  others  (see  Holbrook  and 
Parodi  passim).  The  portrait  is  boldly  executed  in  colors  on  the  front  of 
a  vellum  guard  leaf  (295  by  200  mm.),  hence  may  be  of  different  date  from 
the  text.  We  should  not  speak  of  it  as  a  miniature,  for  it  is  only  slightly 
under  the  scale  of  life.  It  is,  moreover,  the  work  not  of  a  miniaturist  but 
of  a  man  accustomed  to  work  in  fresco.  Dr.  Holbrook's  facsimile  in  colors 
makes  any  elaborate  description  superfluous.  It  agrees  in  all  six  icono- 
graphic points  with  the  Palatine  Miniature,  but  is  a  modernization  of  that 
type.  The  attempt  is  to  introduce  a  reasonable  truth  of  anatomical  de- 
tail, and  to  make  the  expression  somewhat  older  and  more  grim.  These 
improvements  have  led  to  certain  infidelities  to  the  exemplar,  Taddeo  Gad- 
di's fresco.  The  cap  is  cocked  forward  after  Orcagna's  fashion,  the  brow 
is  made  more  bulging  through  the  indentation  of  the  nose,  the  upper  lip 
is  considerably  shortened  as  is  also  the  chin.  These  changes  make  the  nose 
relatively  larger.  They  are  perhaps  due  to  Giotto's  portrait  which  offers 
these  peculiarities  in  a  less  marked  fashion  (see  Fig.  5).  Besides,  the  lower 
lip  projects  slightly  (a  trait  probably  drawn  from  Boccaccio's  report),  the 
tuft  of  hair  at  the  nape  of  the  neck  is  covered  by  a  bag,  the  cassock  shows 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


33 


Fig.  28.     The  Early  Renaissance  Dante.     Painting-  inserted  in   front  of  Riccardian  Ms. 

No.   1040,   Florence.     By   Paolo  Uccello  or   an   imitator  and   possibly   a  variant 

of  the  lost  Dante  done  in  1429  for  the  Cathedral  at  Florence. 


34  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

no  standing  collar,  is  more  exposed  than  in  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portrait  and  is 
completely  closed  in  front  by  numerous  buttons,  finally  the  ties  of  the  under 
cap  are  rigid  and  perfectly  straight.  In  nearly  all  these  peculiarities  the 
Riccardian  Portrait  forms  a  group  with  a  nearly  contemporary  bronze 
medal  and  the  so-called  Death-mask. 

Unfortunately  we  have  no  evidence  as  to  the  age  and  authorship  of  the 
Riccardian  Dante.  The  manuscript  is  later  than  1450.  The  frontispiece 
might  be  an  earlier  thing  bound  in,  or  it  might  be  an  addition  by  a  later 


^^ 


From  Heiss. 

Fig.  29.     Bronze    Medal,    Florentine, 
about   1465. 

owner.  On  the  basis  of  style  alone,  I  am  confident  that  such  a  portrait 
could  have  been  made  no  earlier  than  1425  and  is  not  likely  to  have  been 
made  later  than  1470.  More  narrowly,  it  is  the  work  of  an  artist  trained 
before  1450,  for  it  reveals  the  rigidity  and  painful  detail  of  the  first  gen- 
eration of  Florentine  realists.  Too  inert  in  its  contours  for  Andrea  del 
Castagno,  and  too  hard  in  its  construction  in  light  and  shade  for  Domenico 
Veneziano,  it  is  in  every  way  like  the  work  of  Paolo  Uccello  and  should 
be  by  him  or  by  a  close  imitator.     Paolo  died  in  1475. 

There  are  reasons  to  think  that  this  portrait  was  well  known,  for  its  es- 
sential iconographic  peculiarities  are  echoed  in  a  bronze  Medal  of  the 
period  (Fig.  29),  while  the  so-called  Death-mask  of  Dante  shows  identical 
facial  proportions,  indeed  the  two  profiles  match  precisely  (Fig.  30).  This 
identity  has  escaped  previous  observers  because  of  the  forward  tilt  of  the 
Death-mask.  The  Naples  Bust,  which  is  generally  associated  with  the 
Riccardi  Portrait,  has  much  truer  projxDrtions  and  the  general  similarities 
are  to  be  laid  to  a  common  origin  in  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portrait  of  Dante. 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


35 


Since  the  Riccardian  Portrait,  the  Death-mask  and  the  Medal  are  not 
likely  to  be  by  one  hand,  and  indeed  all  seem  different  in  period,  we  must 
seek  an  explanation  for  the  relationship.  The  easiest  hypothesis  is  that  the 
Riccardian  Portrait  represents  a  well  known  version  displayed  in  a  public 
place  and  of  contemporary  authority.  The  portrait  is  precisely  what  a 
young  and  progressive  artist  might  have  executed  in  1429  when  Fra  An- 
tonio Neri,  public  Dante  reader,  commissioned  a  Dante  for  the  Cathedral 
(Holbrook  172  ff.).     We  may  note  that  Paolo  Uccello  did  the  equestrian 


Fig.  30.     The   Riccardian    Portrait   compared   with   the   Death-mask. 


effigy  of  Sir  John  Hawkwood  for  the  Cathedral  in  1437.  It  is  possible 
enough  that  eight  years  earlier  he  did  the  Dante  for  Fra  Antonio.  As  the 
only  Dante  in  modern  style  accessible  in  Florence,  it  might  readily  have 
gained  a  temporary  authority  during  its  thirty-six  years  of  public  exhibi- 
tion.^ When,  in  1465,  it  was  superseded  by  Michelino's  Dante  it  was  still 
preserved  for  three  hundred  years  in  the  Cathedral  precincts  and  was 
available  for  any  active  searcher.  Naturally  I  do  not  wish  to  give  to  a 
pure  hypothesis  more  than  its  due  weight.     At  least  it  may  serve  as  a  pro- 

*  Since  Fra  Antonio's  picture  represented  Dante  and  an  old  man  engaged  in  a  colloquy 
in  a  Florentine  street,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  they  faced  each  other  presenting  their 
profiles  to  the  observer.  Indeed  anything  but  a  profile  portrait  was  unlikely  as  early  as 
1429.  The  scene,  a  city  street,  suggests  again  that  the  painter  was  a  progressive  of 
Uccello's  type,  and  interested  in  the  then  new  art  of  linear  perspective.  For  date  see 
Catalogue,  No.  8". 


36  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

visional  explanation,  pending  a  better  one,  of  a  curious  chain  of  facts  and 
circumstances. 

The  fifteenth  century  Medal  of  Dante  exists  in  several  sizes.  I  repro- 
duce the  one  chosen  by  Armand  Heiss  in  his  "Medailleurs  Italiens,"  t.  VHP 
pi.  XVII.  No  expert  has  attempted  either  to  date  it  precisely  or  to  name 
its  author.  Somewhat  classicized  through  the  addition  of  a  wreath  and  the 
softening  of  the  features,  it  agrees  fairly  both  in  facial  proportions  and 
iconographical  traits  with  the  Riccardian  Portrait.  The  reverse  shows 
Dante  standing  in  profile  facing  the  mountain  of  Purgatory  and  the  en- 
trance to  the  Inferno.  In  a  general  way  this  composition  is  similar  to 
Michelino's,  but  the  motive  is  different.  Michelino  makes  Dante  turn 
away  from  the  scene  of  his  poem  and  face  the  public.  I  think  both  the 
obverse  and  reverse  of  this  medal  may  be  drawn  in  part  from  the  lost 
picture  of  1429,  which  in  turn  may  well  have  furnished  precedents  to 
Michelino.  The  date  of  the  medal  is  rather  likely  to  be  1465,  the  second 
centenary  of  Dante's  birth. 

As  for  the  Torrigiani  Death-mask  in  the  Uffizi,^  the  parent  of  nu- 
merous copies,  we  have  no  history  of  it  before  the  eighteenth  century.  Its 
false  proportions  are  to  a  hair  those  of  the  Riccardian  Portrait.  On  the 
theory  that  it  is  a  falsification,  nothing  is  more  likely  than  that  the  fabri- 
cator should  have  hunted  up  the  discarded  and  virtually  unknown  Dante 
of  1429  in  the  storerooms  of  the  Cathedral.  Such  is  probably  the  case. 
But  it  also  remains  possible  that  this  version  was  never  even  intended  as  a 
death-mask,  being  merely  so  labelled  by  some  credulous  owner.  In  that 
case  we  should  have  to  do  with  a  plaster  sketch  for  a  memorial  medallion 
which  was  presumably  never  executed  in  more  enduring  materials.  To 
date  the  work  would  be  hazardous.  Its  generally  austere  and  unmannered 
modelling  suggests  a  sculptor  still  influenced  by  Donatello  and  active  about 
1500.  It  may  of  course  be  merely  an  imitation  of  such  work.  The  re- 
semblance to  the  probably  contemporary  Naples  Bust,  which  has  universally 
been  overstressed,  seems  to  be  more  or  less  casual  and  due  to  the  persistence 
in  both  works  of  the  traits  of  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portrait.  The  proportions 
of  the  bust  are  far  more  faithful. 

That  the  Riccardian  Portrait  represents  a  well  known  original  is  once 
more  suggested  by  the  kindred  fifteenth  century  panel  in  the  collection  of 
Prince  Trivulzio  at  Milan.    It  is  reproduced  in  Count  Passerini's  excellent 

^  Perhaps  the  most  discreditable  chapter  in  Dante  scholarship  is  the  credulous  ac- 
ceptance of  the  Death-mask  by  such  scholars  as  Cavalcaselle,  Norton,  Paur,  Maria  Ros- 
setti  and  others.  Surely  there  should  have  been  caution  in  considering  an  object  without 
early  history  or  credentials.  The  mere  fact,  accessible  to  all,  that  Dante's  skull  had  been 
found  toothless  should  have  suggested  that  the  Torrigiani  Mask  was  not  based  on  a 
mould  taken  from  the  dead  face. 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


37 


little  brochure  as  plate  9.  Its  peculiarities  are  that  the  face  is  slightly  turned 
towards  the  spectator  while  the  long  tabs  are  not  straight  but  curved.  One 
may  suspect  a  similar  origin  for  the  rather  nondescript  fifteenth  century 
miniature  in  a  Codex  Eugeniano  of  the  Palatine  Library  at  Vienna,  Pas- 
serini,  plate  7.    It  shows  the  same  misproportion  of  the  features,  the  row  of 


l\. 

,,yj)v 

•    l<          '             «       . 

'■       ''■        '^    * 

^ 

( 

/    '  ''  .. 

'     '    *     "  .       ';'     '':^I 

1 
i 
1 

1 " -^ 
1    ■ 
•   i 

V 

( 

j        •; 

1        i 

Fig.  31°.    Dante  and  Beatrice,  Para- 
dise XXVIII.    Note  the  difference 
between  this  Dante  and  the  one 
in  the  adjoining  cut. 


From    Holbroak 

Fig.  3I^    Paradiso   III.     Here  there 

seems    to   be    an   influence    o£   the 

Medal  (Fig.  29)   in  the  face  and 

shortened  form  of  the  cap-tail. 


buttons  and  the  sharp  tabs.  Conformably  to  Boccaccio's  account,  a  trace 
of  beard  is  added.  As  for  the  Riccardian  Portrait,  it  seems  not  a  copy  but 
an  original  work.  If  it  is  a  version  of  the  lost  portrait  of  1429,  as  seems 
to  me  very  likely,  we  must  regard  it  as  a  study  or  a  replica.  It  by  no  means 
deserves  the  confidence  that  Luigi  Passerini  and  Gaetano  Milanesi  (on  the 
strength  of  its  similarity  to  the  Death-mask),  bestowed  upon  it,  for  it 
gives  a  quite  false  account  of  Dante's  features.     But  it  is  interesting  as 


38 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


the  earliest  and  perhaps  artistically  the  most  characterful   of   the   early 
Renaissance  Dantes. 

Botticelli,  in  the  Dante  drawings  made  after  1481  for  Lorenzo  di 
Pier  Francesco  de'Medici,  continues  the  iconographic  tradition  rather 
fitfully.  In  his  examination  of  these  vellum  sheets  now  divided  between  the 
Print  Room  at  Berlin  and  the  Vatican,  Dr.  Holbrook  (page  189)  found 
only  ten  figures  which  have  a  Dantesque  character.     Botticelli's  acquaint- 


\  Alinari. 

Fig.  32.     The  Bronze  Bust  in  the 
Naples    Museum. 

ance  with  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portrait  is  shown  by  his  tendency  to  let  the 
cap-ties  hang  loose  and  crinkly.  Naturally  in  these  swift  and  imaginative 
sketches  he  depended  on  memory.  I  do  not  think  that  the  influence  of  any 
portrait  except  Taddeo's,  and  possibly  the  Medal,  is  traceable  in  this  won- 
derful series  of  illustrations  (Figs.  3i\  31").  Botticelli's  habit  of  varying 
his  Dante  type  capriciously,  however,  had  a  precedent  in  many  early  illu- 
strated manuscripts  of  the  "Divina  Commedia."  The  engravings  in  the 
famous  Landino  edition,  Florence,  1481,  depend  on  Botticelli's  drawings 
and  naturally  repeat  his  type  of  Dante. 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  39 

The  true  iconographic  tradition  reaches  its  culmination  and  end  in  the 
tragic  bust  at  Naples  (Figs.  32,  33).  This  great  masterpiece  in  bronze 
may  well  have  been  modelled  and  cast  in  the  early  years  of  the  sixteenth 
century  (see  p.  64),  but  it  carries  so  strongly  the  stern  accent  of  Dona- 
tello's  age  that  I  must  include  it  here.  As  to  its  history  we  have  no  ade- 
quate record.  It  came  into  the  Naples  Museum  in  1738  with  the  famous 
collections  of  Ottaviano  Farnese.  In  1545  he  had  married  Margaret  of 
Austria,  the  widow  of  the  infamous  Alessandro  de'  Medici.  Guglielmo 
Becchi,  a  learned  editor  of  the  "Museo  Borbonico,"  Naples  1852,  Vol. 
XIV,  tav.  XLIX,  makes  the  suggestion  that  the  bust  may  have  come  from 
the  old  collections  of  the  Medici  through  this  marriage.  Ultimately  we 
are  reduced  to  stylistic  evidence.  Corrado  Ricci  (pp.  279  flf.)  has  sug- 
gested that  this  Bust,  with  the  so-called  Death-mask,  represents  a  lost  origi- 
nal by  Tullio  Lombardi  which  once  stood  on  Dante's  tomb  at  Ravenna.  It 
was  probably  brought  to  Florence  about  1480.  A  Ravennese  Archbishop 
is  said  to  have  given  the  precious  relic  to  Giovanni  da  Bologna,  who  in 
turn  left  it  with  his  pupil  Pietro  Tacca,  from  whom  it  was  snatched  by  an 
eager  Sforza  countess,  in  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century.  This 
strange  story  is  supported  by  certain  circumstantial  evidence  which  may 
better  be  discussed  in  an  appendix  (II)  than  here.  It  has  the  merit  of  bring- 
ing the  Bust  to  Florence  some  time  before  the  Death-mask  turns  up,  and  also 
of  accounting  for  the  absence  of  all  influence  of  so  noble  a  work  in  Renais- 
sance Florence.  It  is  supported  also  by  general  if  not  striking  similarities 
between  the  Naples  Bust  and  the  tomb  effigies  of  TuUio  Lombardi,  also  by 
the  general  probability  that  he  might  have  added  a  portrait  to  the  sepulchre 
designed  by  his  father  at  Ravenna,  Such  considerations  have  brought  ad- 
herents to  Ricci's  view. 

Against  it  there  are,  it  seems  to  me,  especially  strong  circumstantial  argu- 
ments and  the  stronger  evidence  of  the  Bust  itself.  If  so  splendid  a  thing 
stood  for  three-quarters  of  a  century  on  the  much  visited  tomb  of  Dante, 
surely  it  would  have  left  some  trace  of  itself  at  Ravenna  and  throughout 
the  north.  On  the  contrary,  wherever  we  find  an  echo  from  Ravenna,  it 
is  of  Pietro  Lombardi's  feeble  marble  relief.  It  would  be  strange  too  that 
there  should  be  two  sculptural  portraits  on  one  tomb,  and  Dante's  tomb  had 
its  portrait  slab  from  1483.  More  difficult  yet  is  it  to  reconcile  the  robust 
and  searching  modelling  of  the  Naples  Bust  with  the  sentimental  and  rather 
timid  handling  of  Tullio  Lombardi.  The  bronze  clearly  speaks  of  Padua 
or  Florence  rather  than  of  Venice  as  its  birthplace,  and  its  artistic  back- 
ground is  unmistakably  the  stern  naturalism  of  Donatello. 

Its  iconographical  peculiarities  point  to  Florence.  It  transmits  with 
singular  fidelity  the  main  proportions  of  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portrait  (Fig. 
34),  with  which  it  agrees  in  all  essentials.     But  it  is  a  composite  work  and 


40 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


also  reflects  the  influence  of  the  Riccardian  Portrait.  This  is  shown  in  the 
sloping  of  the  forehead,  the  indenting  of  the  nose  and  projecting  brow;  in 
the  protruding  underlip,  in  the  disposition  of  the  cap  and  in  the  rigid  ties. 
Again  the  very  large  eye  of  Taddeo  Gaddi  has  been  reduced  to  more  agree- 
able if  less  correct  size.  Generally  speaking  the  proportions  are  from 
Taddeo  Gaddi  and  the  accessories  from  the  Riccardian  type.  It  combines 
in  an  audacious  and  impressive  synthesis  all  that  was  best  in  the  Gothic  and 
the  Renaissance  Dante.     As  an  imaginative  conception  of  the  poet  it  is  in- 


Alinari 


Fig.  33.    The  bronze  Bust  at  Naples, 
front  view. 


comparable,  yet  I  doubt  if  it  is  quite  a  true  portraiture.  When  Dante  looked 
as  old  and  worldworn  as  this  he  was  toothless.  If  the  Naples  Bust  were 
made  a  little  younger,  more  like  the  Palatine  Miniature,  by  a  sculptor  of 
genius  we  should  have  a  true  semblance  of  the  haughty  exile  who  "made 
a  party  by  himself." 

The  date  and  origin  of  this  Bust  remain  doubtful.  I  fully  agree  with 
Count  Passerini — and  the  opinion  has  the  weighty  support  of  my  colleague 
Professor  Allan  Marquand — that  the  bust  is  Florentine.  It  is  made  on 
models  which  were  readily  accessible  only  at  Florence,  it  betrays  the  in- 
fluence of  Donatello.  In  its  general  handling  it  suggests  Donatello's  pupil 
and  successor  Bertoldo,  but  there  is  nothing  specific  enough  to  link  it  to 
his  name.  As  to  date,  the  probable  limits  would  be  from  say  1475  to  15 15, 
with  a  probability  for  the  later  years  of  the  span.  If  I  am  right  in  thinking 
that  the  wood-cut  portrait  in  the  "Convivio,"  1521,  reflects  the  influence 
of  the  Bust  (see  p.  64),  then  the  Bust  may  be  set  a  few  years  earlier,  say 
15 ^5"  1520.     In  any  case  we  must  suppose  that  this  masterpiece  was  jeal- 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


41 


ously  guarded  in  some  private  collection,  for  it  is  almost  without  influence 
on  the  contemporary  iconography  of  Dante. 

The  main  conclusions  of  this  chapter  are  as  follows :     The  Riccardian 
Portrait  may  represent  the  lost  Dante  made  for  the  Cathedral  in  1429;  the 


Fig.  34.     The       Palatine       Miniature 
(dotted  line)   overlaid  on  the   Na- 
ples Bust.   The  facial  proportions 
are    nearly    identical,    but    the 
sculptor  has  exaggerated  the 
nose,   made   the   brow   and 
lower  Up  project  and  the 
forehead     recede,     and 
has    also    diminished 
the  size  of  the  eye. 


taste  of  the  Renaissance  objected  to  the  big  eye  and  long  upper  lip  of  the 
Gaddi  Dante,  and  attenuated  these  features ;  the  learning  of  the  Renaissance 
took  over  from  Boccaccio  the  tradition  of  the  projecting  under  lip — a 
trait  possibly  marked  only  in  Dante's  last  years  (p.  2)  ;  while  most  por- 
trayers  of  Dante  followed  these  innovations,  the  unknown  genius  who 
modelled  the  Naples  Bust  fortunately  respected  the  true  proportions  of 
Taddeo  Gaddi 's  portrait. 


CHAPTER  FOUR 

FIFTEENTH  CENTURY,  THREE-QUARTER  FACE  TYPES  AND 
THEIR  DERIVATIVES 


CHAPTER  FOUR 


FIFTEENTH  CENTURY,  THREE-QUARTER  FACE  TYPES  AND 

THEIR  DERIVATIVES 

Miniature  and  Cassone  Types.    Castagno.    Michelino,  the 
Lost  Bronzing.     Morghen's  Print. 

When  Italian  portraiture  shifts  from  a  Gothic  to  a  Renaissance  basis, 
from  about  1460  on,  the  aspect  changes  from  profile  to  three-quarter  view 
and  there  is  a  corresponding  improvement  in  structure  and  anatomy.  The 
more  progressive  depictors  of  Dante  followed  this  tendency,  generally  with 
unhappy  results  as  regards  character.     There  was  early  precedent  in  the 


Fig.  35*-    Dante   from   a   Laurentian 
Ms.  of  about  1400. 


45 


46 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


manuscripts.  A  Laurentian  manuscript,  Plut.  40,  No.  7,  shows  a  rudely 
drawn  Dante  standing  in  three-quarters  aspect  and  awaiting  Charon's 
barque  (Fig.  35").  The  date  is  before  1400,  and  the  characterization  is 
fairly  Dantesque  in  a  caricature  fashion. 

The  earliest  life-size  Dante  in  this  position  is  probably  that  which  An- 
drea del  Castagno  did  for  a  Carducci  villa  at  Legnaia  (Fig.  35").  It  formed 


Fig.  35^     Fresco  by  Andrea  del  Cas-  Fi<-    39'-      Contempo- 

tagno,    Museum    of     Sta.    Apol-  rary      copy      of      a 

Ionia,  Florence.     1440-1457.  Drawing  by  Antonio 

Pollaiuolo,  Library 
of  Christ  Church, 
Oxford.  About 
1475. 

part  of  a  series  of  famous  men  and  women,  and  with  its  fellows  has  been 
transferred  to  the  Ex-Convent  of  Sant'  Apollonia  at  Florence.  The  figure 
seems  to  follow  Taddeo  Gaddi's  type  rather  closely  in  facial  proportions 
(note  the  long  upper  lip),  but  the  cap  strings  are  tied  after  Orcagna's  pre- 
cedent and  the  cap  has  a  peculiarity  in  a  furred  reverse  band.  The  pose 
and  expression  are  serious,  not  to  say  stiff,  and  as  characterization  it  is 
hardly  adequate.  Andrea  has  been  more  concerned  with  placing,  balance, 
and  modelling  than  with  character.  We  have  no  means  of  precisely  dating 
the  work  within  the  span  of  Andrea's  activity,  1420  to  1457. 

Generally  the  three-quarter  types  partake  of  the  mildness  of  this  early 
example.  We  have  a  very  gentle  and  idealistic  portrait  in  a  cassone  front 
at  New  Haven  (Fig.  36).^°    The  poet  accompanied  by  Petrarch  and  Boc- 

1^  In  my  review  of  Holbrook  I  heedlessly  suggested  that  this  figure  might  derive  from 
the  lost  Dante  of  1429,  in  the  Cathedral.  Consult  note  8  for  my  considerate  view  of  the 
matter.  The  Dante  on  this  cassone  front  is  as  original  as  it  is  charming  and  uncharacter- 
istic. 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  47 

caccio  stands  by  a  fountain  in  a  garden  of  love.  The  panel  has  been  vari- 
ously attributed,  but  seems  of  Mas/accian  type  and  no  later  than  1440 
(W.  Rankin,  Burlington  Magazine  XI ('07)  p.  339).  In  the  soft  and 
youthful  beauty  of  the  poet  we  may  have  a  remote  echo  of  Giotto's  Dante 
in  the  Bargello. 

Far  the  most  famous  portrait  of  this  type  was  painted  by  Domenico  di 
Michelino  in  1465    (Fig.  37).     It  replaced  the  Dante  given  in   1429  by 


Fig.  36.     Dante    (right    hand    figure} 
with      Petrarch      and      Boccaccio. 
From  a  Florentine  cassone  front 
of    about    1440    representing    a 
Garden  of  Love.    Jarves  Col- 
lection,   Yale    University 

Antonio  Neri.  The  contract,  dated  January  30,  1465  (new  style  1466) 
provided  that  the  design  should  be  by  Alesso  Baldovinetti  and  the  price 
100  pounds.  Domenico  was  a  pupil  of  Fra  Angelico  and  in  his  work  imi- 
tated the  bright  Gothic  coloring  and  idealistic  sentiment  of  his  master.  The 
type  and  accessories  are  similar  to  Castagno's.  The  rose  and  green  colors 
of  the  costume  are  from  Giotto.  The  decorative  beauty  of  this  picture  and 
its  conspicuous  position  on  the  north  wall  of  the  cathedral  gave  it  great 
authority  and  popularity.  Soon  the  obscure  name  of  Domenico  was  for- 
gotten and  the  great  name  of  Orcagna  substituted.  No  portrait  of  Dante 
has  been  so  often  seen.    It  is  generally  mentioned  in  old  guide-books  which 


> 


48 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


overlook  Giotto.  Altogether,  its  mildness  satisfied  that  multitude  of 
Italians  whose  knowledge  of  Dante,  then  as  now,  was  confined  to  the 
touching  episode  of  Paolo  and  Francesca. 

The  head  (Fig.  38)  was  revised  before  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury by  a  painter  of  talent,  possibly  Agnolo  Bronzino."  Old  copies  of  this 
version  are  in  the  Uffizi  and  the  Yale  Art  School  (Fig.  40).  (See  Dr. 
Siren's  Catalogue  No.  85.)     After  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  a 


Fig.  2>7-     Dante  painted  in   1465  by  Domenico  di   Michelnio   for   ihe   Cathedral,    Florence. 

picture  of  this  type  was  copied  in  line  by  Tofanelli  and  engraved  from  his 
drawing  by  the  illustrious  master  Raphael  Morghen,  notably  in  the  beauti- 
ful Zatta  imprint,  Venice  1757  (Fig.  39).  His  print  was  separately  sold 
and  often  reduced  to  serve  as  frontispiece  of  many  editions  of  Dante; 
thus  this  gentle  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  somewhat  oldwomanly  likeness  of 
Dante  became  in  sole  competition  with  Bernardino  India's  portrait,  the 

11  Vasari  (ed.  cit.  Vol.  VII,  p.  595)  writes  of  Bronzino  "for  Bartolommeo  Bettoni,  to 
fill  certain  lunettes  in  one  of  the  rooms,  the  portrait  of  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio, 
half-length  figures  and  very  beautiful." 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


49 


standard  effigy  for  the  late  eighteenth  and  most  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
In  iconography  too  often  the  less  fit  survives. 

Artistically  the  best  of  these  three-quarter  types  is  a  drawing  at  Christ 
Church  (Fig.  39").  It  represents  the  poet  tall  and  gaunt  holding  a  book 
and  is  more  or  less  reminiscent  of  Castagno  and  Michelino.  Mr.  Berenson 
in  his  ''Drawings  by  the  Florentine  Painters,"  catalogues  this  Dante 
as  a  contemporary  copy  of  a  lost  original  by  Antonio  PoUaiuolo.     I  doubt 


Fig.  38.     Head     of     Dome- 
nico  di  Michelino's  Dante. 


Fig.  40.      The    Yale    Dante 
(cut  down   at   sides). 


Fig.     39.      The      TofanelH- 

Morghen  Print  (cut  down 

at    sides). 


if  it  was  ever  executed  on  a  large  scale,  for  in  such  case  so  distinctive  a 
thing  would  probably  have  left  some  trace  in  the  iconographic  tradition. 

There  is  in  the  print  room  at  Berlin  a  vigorous  drawing  of  a  middle  aged 
man  ascribed  to  Signorelli  (Fig.  41").  It  is  near  enough  the  Michelino 
type  for  some  sixteenth  century  owner  to  have  scribbled  "Dante"  on  the 
sheet.  He  may  well  have  been  wrong  in  the  identification.  Mr.  Beren- 
son in  "Drawings  by  the  Florentine  Painters,"  has  proposed  the  correct 
attribution,  Piero  di  Cosimo.     The  date  is  not  very  far  from  1490. 

I  may  add  here  the  rugged  figure  in  a  manuscript  of  the  University  Li- 
brary at  Turin  (Fig.  41").    It  is  of  Ferrarese  (Cossa)  type  and  about  1475. 


50 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


It  merely  shows  how  freely  the  painters  worked  when  uncontrolled  by  the 
Florentine  tradition.     As  portraiture  it  is  fantastic. 

So  ends  a  brief  and  inglorious  chapter  which  has  little  to  do  with  the 
authentic  development  of  Dante  iconography. 


•r^ 


Fig.  4i\     Dante  from  Ms.  N,  VI,  ll 
University  Library,  Turin,  Lom- 
bard School,  about  1475. 


\  ■>.. 

? 

k.. 

.  .k /-* 

P 

Fig.  41".     Dante (?).       Drawing     by 
Piero  di  Cosimo,  ascribed  to  Sig- 
norelli,   in   the   Berlin    Print- 
room. 


CHAPTER  FIVE 
IRREGULAR  TYPES 


CHAPTER  FIVE 

IRREGULAR  TYPES 

In  Miniatures  and  Cassone  Paintings.  Toothless  Type. 
Giovanni  dal  Ponte  and  Signorelli.  Justus  of  Ghent. 
FiLiPPiNO  Lippi.  Raphael.  Wood-cuts  of  1521  and  1529. 
Bernardino  India,  The  Munich  Drawing.  Sessa's  Wood- 
cut OF  1564. 

Outside  of  the  true  iconographic  tradition  which  stems  from  Taddeo 
Gaddi  there  are  a  number  of  Dante  portraits  of  a  greatly  modified  or  purely- 
fanciful  sort.  One  such  is  the  recently  discovered  fresco  at  Ravenna  (Fig. 
22).     Since  artists  of  the  note  of  Signorelli  and  Raphael  produce  or  fol- 


O  laJwUtu:  uiadliannaxctucomcdu 
TDromcc  .Uc«urn  udlacjiulc  n.«a>  xkI  \»xr 
ifxtozio  cTxUmiiu. 


I 


Fig.  42.    Dante  before  the  Muse  Cal- 
liope,   Purgatorio.    I.   9.,    Miniature 
from  a  manuscript  of  about  1350 
in  the  Marcian  Library,  Venice. 


From    Bassennanu 

low  eccentric  types,  I  must  treat  in  brief  fashion  a  matter  of  rather  minor 
interest  to  the  true  Dante  lover. 

The  manuscripts  at  all  times,  and  the  cassone  paintings  generally,  offer 
irregular  and  most  various  portraiture  of  our  poet.  These  portraits  are  of 
some  importance  if  only  because  they  represent  a  constant  possibility  of 
variation.  Some  eighty  manuscripts  out  of  eight  hundred  of  the  "Divina 
Commedia"  contain  either  portraits  or  illustrations  or  both.  The  matter 
has  been  studied  summarily  by  Volkmann,  pretty  thoroughly  by  Franz 
Xaver  Kraus,  reduced  to  instructive  resume  by  Holbrook,  and  sumptuously 


.53 


54 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


illustrated  by  Bassermann.  But  the  results  from  these  studies  are  small. 
Generally  the  miniaturists  worked  at  best  from  vague  memory  of  the  estab- 
lished types,  often  they  took  no  pains  to  be  consistent  with  themselves. 
Most  of  them  adopted  the  pointed  ear-tabs  of  Taddeo  Gaddi  as  sufficient 


Fig.  43.     Miniature   for  Inferno,   i,   from   Ms.   Ital.   No.  74  Bibliotheque 

Nationale,  Paris,  date  before  1400.     Note  two  types 

of  Dante  in  one  picture. 


mark  of  identification,  sometimes  making  assurance  doubly  sure  by  labelling 
the  poet  with  a  big  D.  Outside  of  Florence  pure  fancy  reigned.  We  find 
in  the  Marcian  Codex,  cl.  IX.,  p.  270,  at  Venice  a  bearded  Dante^^  kneeling 

12  Florence  produced  at  least  one  bearded  Dante  in  the  Miniatures  of  Laur.  Cod.  Tempi 
I.C.Z.  The  chin  beard  is  a  mere  fuzz  as  in  the  Palatine  Miniature  at  Vienna  [see  Pas- 
serini  pi.  7,  and  Ancona,  "La  Miniatura  Fiorentina"   (Florence  1914)   Tav.  LI.] 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


55 


before  the  muse  (Fig.  42).  The  date  will  be  about  1350.  Elsewhere  in 
the  manuscript  the  type  differs  wildly.  Evidently  there  was  no  standard 
outside  of  Florence,  and  not  much  for  miniature  painters  at  Florence  itself. 
We  have  for  example  in  a  single  miniature  of  Italian  Ms.  No.  74  of  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale,  a  Florentine  work  of  about  1400,  the  meeting  of 
Dante  and  Virgil,  and  Dante  fleeing  from  the  three  beasts  (Fig.  43).  The 
smaller  figure  shows  a  very  aged  and  heavily  lined  face  with  the  accessories 
of  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portrait.  The  larger  figure  is  younger,  the  nose  is 
straight,  and  the  lips  are  drawn  in  as  if  upon  toothless  jaws.    Oddly  enough 


Fig.  45.     Dante  and  Virgil  with  Pa- 
olo and  Francesca,  Cod.     Urbin, 
No.    369.      Vatican.      About 
1480. 


From     Bassermann. 


this  single  miniature  contains  the  two  influential  manuscript  types — One  a 
very  decrepit  and  aged  face  which  recurs  in  Pesellino's  Triumph  of  Fame 
at  Fenway  Court,  and  the  other  a  young,  straight  nosed  and  toothless  type, 
which  occurs  in  a  painting  by  Giovanni  dal  Ponte  at  Harvard  University, 
in  the  famous  Urbinate  Ms.  No.  369,  in  the  Vatican,  and  in  Signorelli's 
frescoed  portrait  at  Orvieto.  Raphael  in  the  Stanze  blends  the  two  un- 
orthodox traditions  in  an  aged  and  toothless  Dante  with  a  straight  nose. 
We  may  briefly  trace  these  two  traditions. 

The  little  panel  by  Giovanni  dal  Ponte  which  I  have  just  mentioned 
was  painted  probably  about  1440  (Fig.  44).  It  represents  Dante  being 
crowned  by  a  genius,  with  a  second  figure  which  may  be  either  Virgil, 
as  seems  most  likely  to  me,  or  Petrarch.  The  picture  has  been  pub- 
lished with  a  learned  commentary  by  Mr.  F.  Mason  Perkins  in  Art  in 
America  for  June  192 1,  and  also  by  Giacomo  di  Nicola  in  an  appendix  to 


56 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


Passerinl's  booklet.  It  is  the  end  of  a  cassone,  the  front  of  which  prob- 
ably showed  an  array  of  famous  poets.  In  a  cassone  front  by  the  same 
painter   (Spiridon  Collection,   Paris),  a  figure  nearly  identical  with  this 


Fig.  46.     Signorelli's  Dante,  fresco  painted  after  1500 

for  the   Chapel  of   S.   Brixio,  in  the 

Cathedral,  Orvieto. 


Fig.  44.     Dante      by      Giovanni     dal 

Ponte,  from  the  painted  end  of 

a    cassone,   date    about    1440, 

in  the  Fogg  Museum, 

Harvard. 

Dante  appears  as  the  representative  of  Grammar.  Probably  the  type  served 
the  artist  indifferently  for  a  Dante  and  a  Priscian.  The  type  shows  a  huge, 
nearly  straight  nose,  a  short  lower  face  with  projecting  upper  jaw  and  ap- 
pearance of  toothlessness,  ear-tabs  tied  under  the  chin,  a  bag  rather  than 
a  tail  falling  behind  from  the  cap,  the  reverse  of  the  cap  not  in  self  stufif 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


57 


but  in  fur.  Most  of  these  traits  recur  in  the  Vatican  Urbino  manu- 
script (Fig.  45)  and  in  Signorelli  (Fig.  46).  The  idea  of  the  projecting 
upper  lip  and  toothlessness  may  have  ultimately  been  drawn  from  Orcag- 
na  (Fig.  19),  but  the  type  is  so  unlike  his  that  one  would  rather  credit  or 
discredit  the  miniaturists  and  cassone  painters  with  this  not  very  happy  in- 
vention. 


Fig.  49.    From    a   Jardiniere    in    the 
Uffizi,    historiated    with    the    Tri- 
umphs of  Petrarch.    This  head 
of  Dante  is  in  the  Triumph 
of    Fame.      The    date    is 
after   1450. 


Fig.  47.     From  the  Triumph  of  Fame 
in    a    cassone    front    by    Francesco 
PeselHno,  about  1450,  in  the  col- 
lection of  Mrs.  John  L.  Gard- 
ner,   Boston. 


The  grim  and  aged  Dante  which  occasionally  appears  in  the  manuscripts 
and  in  Pesellino's  Triumph  of  Fame,  about  1450  (Fig.  47),  is  based  chieliy 
on  the  Riccardian  type  with  perhaps  an  infusion  of  Orcagna.  It  is  prob- 
ably the  earliest  portrait  to  emphasize  the  projecting  under  lip.  It  has  pe- 
culiar narrow  ear-tabs  which  show  the  ears.  The  most  impressive  version 
before  Raphael  is  an  intarsia  (Fig.  48)  of  about  1500  by  Benedetto  da  Ma- 
jano  in  the  Palazzo  Vecchio  on  the  door  of  the  audience  hall.  The  long, 
round  ear-tabs  are  novel  traits  which  need  explanation.  Another  ex- 
ceptional type  is  on  a  painted  jardiniere  in  the  Uffizi  in  a  Triumph  of 
Fame  (Fig.  49),  of  about  1450  (Schubring  "Cassoni"  taf.  LVI).  The 
facial  type  with  straight  nose  and  short  upper  lip  foreshadows  Raphael's. 

The  peculiarity  of  long  round  ear-tabs  appears  earliest  in  a  stern  figure 
in  the  fresco  of  St.  Peter  before  the  Proconsul  in  the  Brancacci  Chapel 
(Fig.  50).  The  painter  is  Filippino  Lippi  and  the  date  about  1484.  No 
old  authority  mentions  it  as  a  Dante,  but  Raphael  took  it  for  such  and 
modern  critics  have  generally  agreed  with  him,  Melcly^  Missirini^^  (in 
"Delle  Memorie  di  Dante,"  1830,  p.  10),  being  perhaps  the  first  to  make 
the  identification.     The  severe  face  with  the  projecting  under  Hp  is  em- 

13  He  writes :  "Besides,  the  Great  Masaccio  [mistake  for  Filippino]  painted  the  face 
and  figure  of  Dante  in  one  of  the  personages  of  the  picture  of  the  Martyrdom  of  St. 
Peter  in  the  splendid  chapel  of  the  Carmine."  The  Dante  is  really  in  the  adjoining  sub- 
ject, St.  Peter  before  the  Proconsul.     Missirini  was  content  to  get  the  wall  right. 


V 


58 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


inently  Dantesqiie  and  one  of  the  finest  portraits  of  the  poet.  In  its  pro- 
portions it  generally  "follows  the  Riccardian  type,  but  it  is  essentially  an 
original  invention  both  in  accessories  and  expression.  The  nose  is  straight. 
Filippino  has  endued  with  Dante's  features  the  personage  who  plays  the 
part  of  St.  Peter's  advocate  in  the  legend.  Incidentally  he  has  given  the 
inspiration  for  Raphael's  type. 

A  quite  feeble  and  characterless  Dante  generally  ascribed  to  Justus  of 


Fig.  48.    Benedetto    da    Majano,    In- 

tarsia  (detail)  in  the  Palazzo 

Vecchio. 


From    Passerini. 

Ghent  and  now  in  the  Louvre  (Fig.  51)  demands  our  attention  if  only 
because  it  is  presumably  the  first  Dante  that  Raphael  saw  and  because  it 
left  a  certain  influence  on  his  type.  This  Dante  was  painted  about  1475,  by 
a  Fleming,  Joos  van  Wassenhove,  who  came  to  Urbino  in  1473,  ^^^  ^^^" 
cuted  a  series  of  famous  writers  ancient  and  modern  for  Federigo  da 
Montefeltro's  library.  The  best  account  of  the  matter  is  that  of  Venturi 
(Tom.  VII,  part  3,  p.  124  fif.).  Giusto  da  Gand,  as  the  Italians  called  him, 
was  little  of  a  humanist  and  had  presumably  never  read  a  line  of  Dante. 
For  his  portrait  he  apparently  had  no  good  Florentine  exemplar.  The 
Medal  (Fig.  29),  may  have  given  him  the  wreath  and  other  accessories. 
He  seems  to  have  taken  the  meaningless  gesture  of  the  raised  hand  from  a 
fresco  in  Sant'  Agostino  at  neighboring  Rimini  (Fig.  52).  This  fresco 
contains  a  figure,  which  while  without  authority  of  any  sort,  is  thought  by 
some  to  represent  Dante.  Justus  seems  so  to  have  regarded  it,  and  its 
straight  nose  may  have  seemed  preferable  to  the  ugly,  hooked  feature  in 
the  medal.  In  any  case  Justus  arrives  at  a  rather  neutral  and  glum  type, 
in  its  poor  way  quite  his  own.     We  find  it  echoed  in  still  more  woebegone 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


59 


Fig.  50.     Dante  by  Filippino  Lippi  from  the  fresco  of  St.  Peter  before 

Nero,  painted  about  1484  in  the   Brancacci  Chapel, 

Church  of  the  Carmine. 


6o  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

guise  in  an  early  sixteenth  century  portrait  of  Dante  in  the  Pisa  Museum 
(Holbrook  i68).  There  is  a  better  offshoot  in  the  portrait  of  a  wreathed 
and  very  youthful  Dante  formerly  in  the  Morris  Moore  collection  (Fig. 
53).    Mr.  Moore  wrote  a  monograph  on  the  picture  in  which  he  ascribed  it 


Braun 

Fig.  51.     Dante  by  Justus  of   Ghent, 

now  in  the  Louvre,  from  a  series 

of  famous  authors  painted  about 

1475    for    the    Library    of    the 

Palace  at  Urbino. 


From  Berthier 

Fig.  53.     The   "Morris    Moore   Dante,"   present   where- 
abouts unknown.     Apparently  of  the  Urbino 
School   about   1500. 

to  Raphael  and  traced  it  to  Cardinal  Bembo's  collection.  This  view  while 
not  convincing  is  by  no  means  impossible.  The  little  panel  is  just  what  a 
boy  of  talent  refining  on  Justus's  portrait  might  paint.  The  relation  which 
has  already  been  noted  by  Koch  and  Holbrook  is  confirmed  not  only  by 
the  features  but  by  the  peculiar  twist  of  the  extra  cloth  at  the  front  of  the 
cap.    Whether  the  "Morris  Moore  Dante"  be  by  Raphael  or  by  some  more 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


61 


obscure  Urbinate  of  his  time,  it  at  least  illustrates  the  influence  of  a  por- 
trait publicly  shown  in  the  famous  library  of  a  celebrated  palace. 

Bernardino  India's  Dante  which  Dr.   Holbrook  associates,  I  think  er- 
roneously, with  that  of  Justus,  will  be  considered  later. 


Fig.  52.    Alleged    Portrait   of   Dante 

from  a  fresco  in  the  Church  of 

Sant'  Agostino,  Rimini,  date 

about   1350. 


From   Passerini. 


Raphael's  Dante,  like  his  work  as  a  whole,  is  highly  composite  and 
eclectic.  Unquestionably  he  had  seen  the  Dante  of  Justus  of  Ghent  in 
childhood;  in  young  manhood  at  Florence  he  no  doubt  studied  with  all 


Fig.  56.    Dante  from  Raphael's  fres- 
co of  the   Parnassus,   Vatican. 


Fig.  54.    Dante  from  Raphael's  fres- 
co of   the   Disputa,   Vatican, 


care  the  profiles  by  Giotto,  Taddeo  Gaddi  and  Orcagna,  the  full  length 
versions  by  Michelino  and  Filippino  Lippi,  and  possibly  the  immensely  aged 
effigy  in  intarsia  by  Benedetto  da  Majano.     He  probably  knew  the  Riccar- 


62 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


dian  type  in  the  Medal,  but  I  cannot  see  that  it  in  any  way  influenced  him, 
any  more  than  Signorelli's  Dante  did. 

Raphael  did  three  Dantes  all  of  which,  while  differing  in  age  and  cer- 
tain details,  have  a  consistent  character.  The  earliest  perhaps  is  the  ravaged 
face  which  appears  in  profile,  at  the  right  of  the  earthly  group  in  the  Dis- 


FiG.  55.     Raphael's    Pen-drawing    for 

the  Dante  in  the  Parnassus,  date 

about    151 1,   Albertina, 

Vienna. 


puta  (Fig.  54).  It  is  the  face  of  a  haggard  and  toothless  sage.  The  nose 
is  almost  straight,  the  whole  face  slopes  sharply  forward  to  a  very  long 
chin,  there  is  a  slight  projection  of  the  lower  lip.  The  cap  has  no  hanging 
point  but  rather  a  fold,  the  ear-tabs  are  long  and  rounded.  I  doubt  if  it 
be  possible  to  assign  exact  sources  for  this  very  original  and  imposing  head. 
I  believe  Justus  of  Ghent  and  Filippino  Lippi  cause  the  rejection  of  the  tra- 
ditional hooked  nose.  Raphael  had  very  carefully  studied  the  frescoes  by 
Filippino  and  Masaccio  in  the  Brancacci,  and  the  whole  port  of  his  full- 
length  Dante  in  the  Parnassus  seems  to  be  suggested  by  Filippino.     The 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


63 


character  of  the  Dante  of  the  Disputa  is,  I  believe,  inspired  by  Orcagna. 
Orcagna  and  Filippino  supply  the  peculiar  form  of  the  head  gear.  I  can 
find  no  trace  either  of  the  Death-mask  or  of  the  Naples  Bust  in  Raphael. 
Indeed  it  is  unlikely  that  they  existed  as  early  as  151 1. 

A  little  later  perhaps,  Raphael  had  to  repeat  the  figure  of  Dante  m  the 
Parnassus.  Appropriately  the  painter  created  for  the  Elysian  fields  of  poesy 
a  younger  and  less  tragic  type.  We  have  it  in  a  preliminary  pen  sketch 
in  the  Albertina  at  Vienna  (Fig.  55)  and  in  the  fresco  (Fig.  56).     The 


Fig.  57.    Title      Vignette,      woodcut, 
'  of  the  Convivio  of  1521,  Venice. 


From    Holbrook. 


Fig.  58.     Title  Vignette  of  the  Divina 
Commedia  of  1529,  Venice. 


posture  and  accent  recall  Filippino  in  the  Brancacci  Chapel.  None  of 
Raphael's  Dantes  preserve  the  true  proportions  of  the  authoritative  types. 
It  is  clear  that  he  found  both  Giotto  and  Taddeo  Gaddi  negligible  for  his 
purpose.  Such  was  the  common  view  of  the  time.  While  in  artistic  quality 
these  Dantes  in  the  Vatican  are  inferior  only  to  the  Naples  Bust,  they  lack 
its  insight,  and  a  sound  instinct  has  prevented  the  use  of  these  much  ad- 
mired Raphaels  as  a  source  for  later  Dantes. 

In  printed  books  of  the  sixteenth  century  there  are  only  three  portraits 
of  Dante  interesting  enough  to  excite  curiosity  as  to  their  source.  The 
earliest  and  best  is  in  the  Venetian  edition  of  1521  of  the  "Amoroso  Con- 
vivio" (Fig.  57).  The  face  seems  to  me  to  imply  study  of  the  Naples  Bust 
or  its  equivalent,  the  form  of  the  hood  is  that  of  Pietro  Lombardi's  relief 


64 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


on  the  tomb  at  Ravenna.  A  mountainous  landscape  is  indicated  as  back- 
ground and  the  whole  layout  suggests  a  portrait  of  Giovanni  Bellini's  school 
executed  before  15 15.  The  wood-cut  may  be  based  on  such  a  lost 
portrait  or  may  merely  simulate  the  case.  We  have  to  do  with  the  compo- 
sition of  a  man  trained  in  the  style  of  the  Venetian  early  Renaissance.  We 
learn  from  this  portrait  that  the  Naples  Bust  was  extant  at  least  as  early  as 
1 52 1  and  accessible  to  a  Venetian  designer. 

The  wood-cut  of  Dante  in  the  Divina  Commedia  of  1529,  Venice  (Fig. 


Fig.  59.     Heylbrouck's    engraving    of 

Bernardino    India's    Dante    from 

the  Padua  edition  of  1727. 


Fig.  60.     Dante    from    a    picture    as- 
cribed to  Giambellino,  but  plainly 
derivative    from    India's,    in 
the  Zatta  edition,  1757. 


58),  follows  its  predecessor  in  general  arrangement  but  eliminates  the  land- 
scape and  considerably  changes  the  features.  The  forehead  becomes  nearly 
straight,  the  indentation  of  the  nose  disappears,  the  lower  lip  projects  more 
noticeably,  the  cap-ties  are  treated  as  in  Justus  of  Ghent's  version  at  Urbino. 
We  have  possibly  merely  an  attempt  to  age  and  revise,  according  to  Boc- 
caccio's account  or  some  Florentine  portrait,  an  original  rather  close  to 
Justus.  Noteworthy  is  the  huge,  deeply  cut  eye  which  again  is  likely  to 
come  from  Boccaccio. 

Sometime  about  1570  Bernardino  India  of  Verona  made  a  bust  portrait 
of  Dante  (Fig.  59),  which  had  considerable  vogue  as  a  frontispiece  in  the 
eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  century.    It  is  remarkable  for  a  great  angry 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


65 


eye  (from  the  Gaddi  portrait?)  and  for  a  very  pendulous  nose,  the  chin  is 
also  puffy  and  heavy.  The  original  painting  has  disappeared  and  is  small 
loss,  but  in  1727,  when  it  was  engraved  for  the  Comino,  Padua,  edition, 
it  was  still  in  the  collection  of  Count  Daniele  Lisca  of  Verona.  Its  not  very 
recondite  origin  seems  to  me  to  be  the  woodcut  portraits  of  1529  perhaps 
revamped  on  a  portrait  of  the  Riccardian  type.  The  same  ugly  and  sin^ter 
countenance  appears,  in  reverse  direction  and  provided  with  a  meanly 
drawn  wreath,  in  the  fine  Zatta  edition,  Venice,  1757.  It  is  ascribed  pre- 
posterously to  Giovanni  Bellini   (Fig.  60)   and  located  in  the  library  of 


Fig.  61.    Brush    drawing,    Florentine 

about  1540,  in  the  Print  Room 

at  Munich. 


Fig.  62.    Woodcut   title    Vignette   of 

Sessa's   "Divina   Commedia," 

Venice,  1564. 


Marchese  Jacopo  di  Dionisio  Can.  It  is  merely  a  variant  of  India's  bad 
type.  Dr.  Holbrook  dates  the  India  portrait  in  1472,  on  what  authority 
I  do  not  know. 

I  shall  tax  the  patient  reader  with  only  two  more  portraits  and  then  our 
course  together  will  have  been  run.  In  the  Print  Room  at  Munich  is  a 
brush  drawing  of  very  fine  quality  (Fig.  61),  originally  in  the  collection  of 
Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  and  then  ascribed  to  Raphael.  Ernst  Forster  when 
he  published  the  drawing  in  the  "J^^rbuch  der  Deutschen  Dante-Gesell- 
schaft,"  Vol.  II  (1869),  pp.  VII  f.  only  bettered  the  matter  slightly  when 
he  changed  the  attribution  to  Domenico  Ghirlandaio.  My  own  feeling  was 
for  an  able  Florentine  artist  of  the  transitional  type  of  Ridolfo  Ghirlandaio, 
who  died  in  1561.  Mr.  Berenson,  who  has  kindly  communicated  his 
authoritative  opinion,  dates  the  drawing  about  1540  and  suggests,  for  type 


66  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

an  early  imitator  of  Michelangelo  like  II  Rosso.  We  have  to  do  with  a 
masterly  work,  full  of  learning  and  delicacy.  The  profile  seems  to  me  al- 
most exclusively  based  on  the  Death-mask.  The  heavy  and  fleshy  upper 
eyelid  betrays  the  relation.  The  unknown  artist  has  emphasized  the 
massiveness  and  break  of  the  nose.  Possibly  the  sentimentalized  head  on 
the  title  page  of  the  Fratelli  Sessa's  Dante,  1564,  Venice  (Fig.  62),  depends 
on  something  similar  to  the  Munich  drawing.  Otherwise  I  cannot  trace 
any  influence  from  a  type  which  deserved  more  attention  than  it  secured. 

Our  story  of  the  Dante  portraits  has  its  sadder  side  in  the  persistence  of 
bad  over  good  types.  Happily  Taddeo  Gaddi's  correct  but  uninspired 
record  of  Dante's  features  dominated  Florence  long  enough  to  perpetuate 
itself  in  the  Palatine  Miniature  and  to  produce  the  noble  bust  at  Naples. 
It  should  be  clear  that  we  still  lack  a  satisfactory  semblance  of  Dante  as 
he  actually  appeared  in  youth,  middle  age  and  old  age,  to  his  contempo- 
raries. Giotto's  portrait  has  too  much  sacrificed  the  sharpness  and  char- 
acter of  the  actual  features.  In  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portrait  we  may  divine  the 
irascible,  political  Dante,  but  the  work  is  ugly  and  unskilful.  The  superb 
bust  at  Naples  represents  Dante  with  teeth  at  a  time  when  we  know  he  was 
really  toothless. 

There  remains  a  pious  work  of  reconstruction  for  some  modern  painter 
or  sculptor  of  genius  to  achieve.  His  firm  data  would  be  the  Palatine 
Miniature  and  the  reconstructed  skull.  His  first  task  might  well  be  to 
convey  the  aggressive  character  of  the  Palatine  Miniature  while  amending 
its  defects.  We  should  then  have  the  political  Dante  who  ate  the  bitter 
bread  of  exile  while  yearning  for  an  Italy  unified  under  the  secular  regent 
of  God,  the  Emperor.  His  next  endeavor  might  be  to  give  us  the  poet- 
mystic  of  the  '-Vita  Nuova,"  not  in  the  celestial  transfiguration  of  Giotto 
but  with  the  keen,  alert  features  faithfully  transmitted  by  Taddeo  Gaddi. 
His  final  emprise  might  be  to  figure  forth  the  exile  of  Ravenna ;  and  poet 
of  Hell,  Purgatory  and  Heaven.  Here  would  be  necessary  a  very  sensitive 
rehandling  of  the  Naples  bust,  reducing  it  to  toothlessness  without  making 
it  merely  decrepit  or  pitiful,  preserving  the  fortitude  and  fire  that  burned 
to  the  end  in  the  soul  of  the  Divine  Poet. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

It  has  not  seemed  necessary  to  list  all  books  consulted  in  this  study,  but 
only  such  as  have  really  aided  me.  Nor  have  I  repeated  here  the  numer- 
ous citations  made  only  once  and  fully  in  the  text  and  notes. 

Bassermann,  Alfred,  "Dante's  Spuren  in  Italien."     Heidelberg,  1897. 

Dante,  "Tutte  le  Opere  di  Dante  Alighieri,"  Ed.  E.  Moore,  3  vols.,  Ox- 
ford, 1895. 

HoLBROOK,  Richard  Thayer,  "Portraits  of  Dante  from  Giotto  to  Raph- 
ael," London  and  New  York,  191 1. 

Kraus,  Franz  Xaver,  "Dante  sein  Leben  und  sein  Werk,"  Berlin,  1897. 

Mather,  Frank  J.,  Jr.,  Review  of  Holbrook  in  Romanic  Review,  Vol. 
Ill  (1912),  pp.  1 16-122. 

Parodi,  E.  G.,  Bulletino  delta  Societa  Dantesca  Italiana,  Vol.  XIX  (1912), 
pp.  89-106. 

Passerint,  G.  L.,  "II  Ritratto  di  Dante,"  Florence,  192 1. 

Ricci,  CoRRADO,  "L'ultimo  Rifugio  di  Dante  Alighieri,"  Milan,  1891. 

Venturi,  Adolfo,  "Storia  dell' Arte  italiana,"  Tom.  V.  &  VII,  Milan,  1907. 

Volkmann,  Ludwig,  "Iconografia  Dantesca,"  Leipzig,  1897. 


o 


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Appendix  I 

On  the  Reconstruction  of  the  Skull  from  the  Official  Measurements 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  official  measurements  as  Welcker  and 
Holbrook  (p.  34)  have  done.  Any  error  in  the  main  curves  and  diameters 
would  plainly  show  itself  in  the  failure  of  the  outline  to  join.  It  does  join 
perfectly.  Presumably  the  refinements  of  modern  craniometry  were  not 
observed  in  1865,  and  errors  of  2  mm.  or  less  are  to  be  expected  both  in 
the  longer  measurements  and  in  my  reconstruction  therefrom. 

Diameter     AC  ^187  mm. — from  brow  to  occipital  eminence. 

BI  =  144         — from  highest  point  to  great  foramen. 
Curve        ABC  =  317         — from  eminence  at  brow  to  occipital  eminence. 
CID  =188         — from  occipital  eminence  to  centre  of  alveo- 
lar (under  skull). 
Vertical        JD  =     85         — from  root  of  nose  to  alveolar. 
Slope  JH  =    22         — length  of  nasal  suture. 

Diameter     EF  =     39         — vertical  diameter  of  orbit. 

"  XG  =     43         — from  centre  of  base  of  orbit  to  alveolar  of 

first  bicuspid. 
"  KC  =189         — from  tip  of  nose  bone  to  occipital  eminence. 

Angle  L  =  79°  34'  — Camper's  facial  angle. 

All  these  dimensions  are  taken  directly  from  Ricci's  reprint  of  the  "Re- 
lazione  della  Commissione  governativa  eletta  a  verificare  il  fatto  del  ritrova- 
mento  delle  ossa  di  Dante  in  Ravenna,"  Florence  1865. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  minor  measurement  AJ  is  lacking.  It  has  been 
supplied  from  the  Princeton  skull.  Also  the  important  diameter  KC  is  not 
given  as  such  in  the  official  measurements.  Upon  it  depends  the  projection 
of  the  nose  bone. 

When  I  found  that  the  nose  bone  projected  outside  of  such  contemporary 
portraits  as  Giotto's  and  Taddeo  Gaddi's,  I  assumed  that  my  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  nose  from  the  Princeton  skull  was  at  fault,  that  it  should  be  in- 
dented and  less  protruding.  Then  I  managed  to  get  the  great  horizontal 
curve  530  mm.  which  passes  from  the  nose  bone  over  the  occipital  eminence 
across  the  cheek  bones.  The  coordinates  were  the  width  across  the  cheek 
bones  135  mm.  and  the  transverse  diameter  from  ear  hole  to  ear  hole  130. 
The  longest  diameter  HC  of  this  oval  was  189  mm,  which  very  gratifyingly 
corresponded  to  a  millimeter  with  my  theoretical  reconstruction.  In  short 
the  reconstruction  is  in  this  dimension  more  accurate  than  the  old  portraits. 

The  significant  measurement  from  the  base  of  the  nasal  orifice  to  the 
alveolar — span  of  the  upper  lip — was  not  taken  and  had  to  be  supplied,  at 
25  mm.,  from  the  Princeton  skull.  Since  the  base  of  the  facial  angle  of 
Camper,  79°  34',  is  the  line  passing  over  the  lower  rim  of  the  nasal  orfiice 
from  the  condyles,  my  arbitrary  measurement  for  the  upper  lip  may  have 
made  an  error  in  the  angle.  Such  error,  however,  as  the  reader  may  satisfy 
himself  by  moving  the  base  line  up  or  down  is  really  very  slight  and  would 
not  affect  the  general  appearance.  The  forehead  may  well  have  been  a 
trifle  straighter  than  it  is  in  my  reconstruction.  But  again  the  fit  with 
Giotto's  and  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portraits  is  so  close  (Figs.  10,  14)  that  any 
error  must  be  insignificant. 


N 


\ 


'--  0 


1> 

Diagram  II.    Front   view   of    Dante's   Skull    reconstructed    to    Scale    from    the    Official 

Measurements. 


Front  View 
The  coordinates  for  this  reconstruction  are : 

BI  =  V^ertical  diameter  =  144  mm. 

NO  ==  Extreme  diameter  on  frontal  suture  150 

LM  =  Horizontal  diameter  above  ear-holes  130 

TU  =  Extreme  diameter  across  cheek  bones  135 

PQ  =  Diameter  outside  of  orbits  124 

LBM  =  Curve  from  ear-holes  over  top  330 

JD  =  Root  of  nose  to  alveolar  85 

EF  =  Vertical  diameter  of  orbit  39 

RS  =  Horizontal  diameter  of  orbit  41 

XG  =  Base  of  orbit  to  alveolar  of  first  biscupid     43 

K  =  Nose  bone  is  located  from  the  profile 

The  least  satisfactory  reconstruction  is  that  of  the  curve  LBM,  for  the 
reason  that  there  is  no  sure  way  of  locating  the  greatest  diameter  NO. 
These  points  have  been  fixed  arbitrarily,  considering  the  curve  of  the  fore- 
head. They  probably  were  not  lower  and  they  may  well  have  been  a 
half  inch  higher.  Such  a  location  would  give  the  skull  a  much  more 
wedge  shaped  look. 

The  reader  will  realize  that  these  elevations  of  the  skull  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  mere  diagrams — graphic  expressions  of  measurements,  and  that 
nothing  like  an  anatomical  reconstruction  has  been  even  considered.  The 
diagrams  are  offered  simply  that  my  use  of  the  measurements  may  be 
checked,  and  also  in  the  hope  that  they  may  be  useful  to  some  modern 
artist  who  may  wish  to  make  a  portrait  of  Dante. 


72 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 


Appendix  II — Tacca's  "Head"  of  Dante 

It  was  Seymour  Kirkup  who  dug  up  the  old  wives'  tale  of  a  stray  skull 
(or  "head")  of  Dante,  in  a  manuscript  volume  of  the  Florentine  antiquary 
Giovanni  Cinelli  (1623-1706).  It  is  in  the  Magliabecchiana,  N.  IX,  and 
contains  a  life  of  Dante.  Therein  is  conveyed  the  following  startling  bit  of 
information.     I  use  Holbrook's  translation  (p.  57  f.). 

"His  [Dante's]  head  was  afterwards  taken  out  of  the  sepulchre  by 
order  of  the  Archbishop  of  Ravenna  and  given  to  Giambologna,  from 
whose  hands,  along  with  all  the  other  things  in  small  models  and  other 
materials,  it  passed  into  the  possession  of  Pietro  Tacca  [died  1640],  his 
pupil  and  heir.  And  this  explains  how,  one  day,  as  he  was  showing  to  the 
Duchess  Sforza,  among  other  pretty  things  and  oddities,  the  head  of  Dante, 
she,  with  an  imperious  gesture,  snatched  it  away  and  saw  fit  to  carry  it  ofif, 
depriving  at  the  same  time  Tacca  and  the  city  of  so  dear  a  treasure,  to  the 
very  great  sorrow  of  this  Tacca,  as  I  have  often  been  told  by  Lodovico 
Salvetti,  his  pupil,  and  an  eye-witness  of  this  act. 

"This  head  was  not  very  large  in  front,  but  constructed  with  a  very  great 
delicacy  in  the  bones,  and  from  the  forehead  back  to  the  part  called  occiput, 
where  the  lamboid  suture  ends,  it  was  very  long.  I  mean  it  was  not  round 
like  most  heads  but  oval — a  manifest  proof  of  the  profound  memory  of 


Fig.  63.    Terra-cotta  head  of  Dante 

in  the  collection  of  the  late  Count 

Paolo  Galetti,  Florence. 


this  excellent  poet — and  because  of  its  beauties  it  was  often  used  as  a  pat- 
tern in  drawing  by  Tacca's  young  men.  The  duchess,  however,  having 
put  it  in  a  green  scarf,  carried  it  away  with  her  own  hands,  and  God  knows 
in  whose  possession  and  where  so  precious  a  thing  may  be  now." 

I  cannot  agree  with  Holbrook  that  this  delectable  anecdote  is  to  be  sum- 
marily dismissed  as  a  "legend."  Something  happened.  Cinelli's  informant 
was,  or  said  he  was,  an  eye-witness  of  the  event  and  is  circumstantial  even 
to  the  sutures  of  the  "head"  and  the  hue  of  the  enterprising  Duchess's  scarf. 
Holbrook  and  Parodi  seem  to  me  right  in  assuming  that  the  actual  head 
(skull)  of  Dante  is  intended.     Otherwise  the  anecdote  has  little  point. 

If  as  various  critics  including  Ricci  have  thought,  the  treasure  ravished 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  73 

from  Tacca  was  not  a  skull  but  a  sculptured  head,  it  must  have  been  of  terra 
cotta.  It  was  light  enough  to  be  carried  off  in  a  scarf  by  a  noblewoman 
not  accustomed  to  bearing  heavy  burdens.  There  is  only  one  extant  head 
of  Dante  that  meets  the  case,  namely  a  terra  cotta  head  in  the  collection  of 
the  late  Count  Paolo  Galletti  at  Florence  (Fig.  63).  This  head  was  pub- 
lished by  Passerini  in  the  Giornale  Dantesco,  XXI  (1913),  p.  191,  and 
again  in  his  recent  brochure.  In  both  cases  he  treats  this  sculpture  with 
becoming  reserve.  If  it  really  antedates  the  last  century — and  I  need  to 
be  convinced  that  it  does — it  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  might  well  have  been 
done  in  the  north  in  Giambologna's  time.  Indeed  it  somewhat  resembles 
the  Munich  drawing  (Fig.  61)  and  Sessa's  woodcut  (Fig.  62).  It  is 
also  the  sort  of  thing  that  a  Giambologna  might  have  admired  and  an 
archbishop  need  not  have  hesitated  to  give  away. 

So  much  for  bare  possibilities.  But  Cinelli  certainly  seems  to  be  talking 
of  a  skull.  I  think  Tacca  really  had  a  skull  which  he  and  the  Duchess 
Sforza  believed  to  be  Dante's.  Of  course  it  wasn't  Dante's  skull.  That  the 
Ravennese  Franciscans  had  long  ago  prudently  hidden  beyond  archiepisco- 
pal  ken.  It  was  in  short  some  skull  or  other  which  the  archbishop  hoped 
or  thought  was  Dante's.  The  age  that  has  accepted  the  Death-mask  is  in 
no  position  to  mock  at  the  generation  which  believed  Tacca's  model  skull 
to  be  Dante's. 

Ricci,  who  wished  to  see  in  the  "head"  a  portrait  by  Tullio  Lombardi 
and  the  source  of  the  Death-mask,  is  fully  aware  of  the  weakness  of  his 
own  position.  In  "Ultimo  Rifugio,"  p.  28 1  f.  he  admits  that  Cinelli  must 
be  gossiping  not  about  a  portrait  head  but  about  a  skull. 


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A  SUMMARY  CATALOGUE  OF  DANTE  PORTRAITS 


A  SUMMARY  CATALOGUE  OF  DANTE  PORTRAITS 

Only  portraits  of  relatively  true  or  early  iconographic  type  or  otherwise 
important  are  included.  Uncertainty  of  identification  is  indicated  by  the 
interrogation  point (?). 

1300—1400 

1.  Dante(?)    kneeling  to  receive  a  crown  from   Bologna,  pen   sketch  o£   1323  by  the 

Bolognese  notary  Ugguccione  Bambaglioli   (Figs.  24,  25). 

p.  25  f. 

2.  Taddeo    Gaddi's    Portrait    in    fresco    for    Sta.    Croce,    Florence,    probably    painted 

before  1330.  The  fresco  was  destroyed  in  1566,  but  it  is  almost  certain  that 
we  have  a  faithful  15th.  century  copy  in  the  Miniature  frontispiece  of  Palatine 
Manuscript  No.  320  in  the  Biblioteca  Nazionale,  Florence.  (Frontispiece.) 
This  miniature  corresponds  closely  to  the  proportions  of  Dante's  skull  (Fig.  14) 
and  is  the  most  authentic  likeness. 

pp.    11-18 

3.  Giotto's    Dante    in    fresco    in    the    Bargello,    painted    about    1336.      Discovered    in 

July  1840  by  Seymour  Kirkup,  Aubrey  Bezzi  and  Richard  Henry  Wilde. 
Promptly  covered  and  disfigured  by  Marini's  repaints  (Fig.  9).  Now  best 
represented  by  Kirkup's  chalk  copy  in  the  Vernon  collection,  England  (Fig.  5), 
and  in  second  order  by  his  small  color  sketch  (Fig.  6)  and  by  the  Arundel 
Print  (Fig.  7).  Before  the  restoration,  the  sculptor  Perseo  Faltoni  (Fig.  8) 
made  a  copy  now  in  the  Berlin  Print  Room,  which  confirms  the  accuracy  of 
Kirkup's  work. 

pp.  6-11 

4.  Orcagna's  Dante   (Fig.   19),  in  the  frescoed  Last  Judgment,  Strozzi   Chapel,   Sta. 

Maria  Novella.  Contract  1354.  A  very  old  and  toothless  type  with,  con- 
trary to  Boccaccio's  evidence,  a  retracted  under  lip.  The  peculiar  form  of  the 
cap  before  and  behind  influences  the  later  tradition,  as  do  the  tied  cap-strings. 
I  think  the  haggard  expression  was  in  Raphael's  mind  when  he  created  the 
Dante  of  the  Disputa   (No.  2']'). 

p.  21  f. 

5  Dante(?)  by  Andrea  Bonaiuti  (Fig.  21)  painted  in  fresco  about  1360  for  the 
allegory  of  the  Church  Militant  in  the  Spanish  Chapel,  Sta.  Maria  Novella. 
Possibly  a  derivative  of  Giotto's  Dante. 

pp.  23,  30 

6.  A  LOST  portrait  by  Lorenzo  Monaco  in  an  Ardinghelli  Chapel,  either  in  the 
Trinita  (Vasari)  or  the  Carmine  (Milanesi).  See  Milanesi's  Vasari  Vol. 
II,  p.  20,  n.  I. 

P-  25 
79 


8o  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

1400—1500 

7.  A  Head  of  Dante(?),  drawing  V.  i,  in  the  library  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford 
(Fig.  27)  by  a  painter  trained  in  the  Gothic  technique  working  in  the  early 
years  of  the  fifteenth  century. 

p.  31  i 

8'.  A  Portrait  of  Dante  in  cx)lloquy  with  an  old  man  in  a  Florentine  street.  Ord- 
ered by  Fra  Antonio  Neri  for  the  Cathedral  about  1429.  Replaced  in  1465  by 
No.  18.  For  full  particulars  and  inscription  see  Holbrook,  p.  172  f.  Since 
the  inscription  urges  moving  Dante's  bones  to  Florence,  and  that  city  in  1849 
formally  memorialized  Ravenna  to  that  end,  we  have  good  warrant  for  the 
date  1429  as  that  of  Neri's  picture. 

P-  35 

8*.  The  Riccardian  Portrait.  Colored  frontispiece  of  Riccardian  Ms.  No.  1040 
(Fig.  28).  Probably  a  replica  of  the  portrait  ordered  about  1429  for  the  Cathe- 
dral, and  by  Paolo  Uccello  or  a  follower.  The  first  Renaissance  Dante,  freely 
altered  from  Taddeo  Gaddi  with  the  aid  of  Boccaccio's  description,  and  pos- 
sibly with   consultation  also  of   Giotto's  and   Orcagna's  portraits. 

pp.  32-34 

9.  The  Trivulzian  Dante.  A  panel  in  tempera  in  the  collection  of  Prince  Trivul- 
zio,  Milan.  A  free  variant  of  the  Riccardian  type,  the  head  turned  the  other 
way  and  not  quite  in  profile   (Passerini,  9).     Painted  about  1475. 

p.   36  f. 

10.  The  Eugenian    Dante.     In   the   Eugcnian    Ms.    of   the    "Divine    Comedy"    in    the 

Palatine  Library,  Vienna  (Passerini,  7).  Chiefly  based  on  the  Palatine  type 
but  with  features,  in  the  cassock  and  ear-tabs,  borrowed  from  the  Riccardian. 
From  Boccaccio  the  peculiarity  of  a  slight  beard.     Probably  drawn  about  1450. 

P-  37 

11.  The    Bronze    Medal,    exists    in    several    sizes    and    versions    (Fig.    29).     A   close 

derivative  of  the  Riccardian,  made  possibly  in  1465  for  the  second  centenary 
of  Dante's  birth. 

P-  36 

12.  Botticelli's    Dante.      In    the    pen    and    silver    point    illustrations    for    the    "Divine 

Comedy"  made  after  1481  (Figs.  31*,  31*).  The  splendid  Ms.  is  in  the  Berlin 
Print  Room,  with  a  few  stray  sheets  in  the  Vatican.  The  type  varies  freely, 
often  recalls  the  Palatine  Miniature,  and  is  probably  slightly  influenced  also  by 
the  Medal.  The  engravings  in  the  Landino  "Commedia"  of  1481,  which 
are  commonly  ascribed  to  Baccio  Baldini,  echo  Botticelli  with  fair  fidelity. 
For  the  entire  Botticellian  series  consult  the  greater  and  lesser  publications  of 
Friedrich  Lippmann, 

P-  38 

13.  Pesellino's    Dante.     In    a    cassone    front    in    Mrs.    John    L.    Gardner's    collection, 

Boston,  painted  about  1450  and  representing  with  other  Petrarchan  Triumphs 
the  Triumph  of  Fame.  The  type  is  grim  and  old  (Fig.  47)  with  a  protrud- 
ing under  lip.     Probably  based  on  the  Riccardian  or  its  original. 

P-  57 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  8i 

14.  Benedetto   da    Majano's    Dante,    an   intarsia   on    a   door   of    the   Audience   Cham- 

ber, Palazzo  Vecchio.  Full  length,  very  old  and  grim  with  an  enormous  hooked 
nose.  (Fig.  48  and  Passerini  No.  13).  Somewhat  similar  to  No.  13  and 
perhaps  freely  handled  after  the  Medal  or  some  other  version  of  the  Ric- 
cardian  type.  The  long  rounded  ear-tabs,  later  a  characteristic  of  Raphael's 
type,  apparently  are  taken  from  Filippino  Lippi's  Dante  (No.  25).  Date  of 
the  intarsia  uncertain  but  not  far  from  1490. 

P-  57 

15.  The  Urbino  Dante  by  Justus  of  Ghent    (Fig.   51)    now   in   the   Louvre.     One   of 

a  series  of  famous  authors  painted  about  1475  for  Federigo  da  Montefeltro's 
library  in  the  Ducal  Palace.  The  panels  are  now  mostly  in  the  Louvre  and 
Barberini  collection,  Rome.  The  type  is  glum  and  characterless,  and  may  be 
distinguished  by  the  straight  nose,  and  curving  form  of  the  ties  of  the  ear- 
tabs.  Facial  proportions  are  closer  to  the  Palatine  than  to  the  Riccardian. 
Raphael  in  boyhood  undoubtedly  often  saw  this  Dante  and  its  influence  may 
be  traced  on  his  three  portraits  of  the  poet.  The  insignificant  motive  of  the 
raised  hand  may  have  been  borrowed  from  a  fresco  at  Rimini   (Fig.  52). 

p.  58  f . 

16.  The  "Morris  Moore  Dante"   (Fig.  53),  formerly  ascribed  to  Raphael  and  traced 

to  Cardinal  Bembo's  collection  by  Mr.  Moore  in  a  monograph.  Whereabouts 
unknown.  Small  panel  with  illegible  cartellino,  apparently  of  the  Romagna 
school  and  earlier  than  1500.  It  is  simply  No.  15  made  youthful  and  idealized. 
While  a  rather  feeble  work,  the  ascription  to  Raphael's  callow  years  is  not 
preposterous.  Nothing  more  definite  can  be  said  until  the  picture  itself  turns 
up.     Excellent  cut  in  Berthier's  "Divine  Comedy." 

p.  60 

17.  Andrea  del  Castagno's   Dante   (Fig.  35'').     Full  length  in   fresco   for  a  Carducci 

villa  at  Legnaia.  One  of  a  series  of  famous  men  and  women  now  in  the 
Museum  of  Sant'  Apollonia.  Perhaps  the  earliest  worthy  example  of  the 
three-quarters  type,  though  the  date  is  uncertain.  Andrea  died  in  1457.  The 
facial  proportions  suggest  that  Taddeo  Gaddi's  portrait  was  the  exemplar,  but 
the  changed  aspect  of  Andrea's  figure  disguises  any  relation  to  earlier  por- 
traits.    Accessories  freely  handled.     Color  facsimile  in  Holbrook. 

p.  46 

18.  Domenico    di    Michelino's    Dante    (Fig.    37)    in    the    Cathedral,    Florence.      Com- 

missioned Jan.  30  (old  style),  1465.  Partly  designed  by  Baldovinetti.  Repre- 
sents Dante  standing  before  a  gate  of  Florence,  with  the  mountain  of  Purga- 
tory behind  him,  the  portal  of  Hell  at  his  right,  and  the  seven  circles  of  the 
celestial  bodies  traced  in  the  sky.  Dante  holds  the  Divine  Comedy  in  his  right 
hand.  The  type  is  mild  and  melancholy  in  a  gentle  idealistic  way.  The  posi- 
tion is  guided  by  No.  17,  the  facial  proportions  suggest  the  Riccardian.  Dome- 
nico may  well  have  adopted  some  traits  from  the  old  picture  of  1429  (No. 
8")  which  his  own  replaced.     Color  facsimile  in  Holbrook. 

p.  47  f. 

19.  Antonio    Pollaiuolo's    Dante     (Fig.    39").      Drawing    in    the    library    of    Christ 

Church,  Oxford.  According  to  Berenson,  "Drawings  by  the  Florentine 
Painters,"  a  contemporary  copy  after  a  sketch  by  Antonio.     Excellent  repro- 


82  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

ductlon.  Dante  is  represented  at  full  length  with  his  book,  in  three-quarters 
aspect.     Influenced   by   No.    i8.     Date  probably   after    1475.     Antonio   died    in 

1498. 

p.  49 

20.  PiETRO   LoMBARDi's  Dante,  marble   low   relief    (Fig-.  23)    in   the   tomb   at   Ravenna, 

1483.  The  type  is  nondescript.  This  reading  Dante  takes  its  motive  from  a 
fresco  in  S.  Francesco  (Fig.  22)  at  Ravenna.  It  is  ascribed  to  Giovanni 
Baronzio,  active  about  1350,  and  has  apparently  from  an  early  time  been  re- 
garded as  a  Dante  though  having  no  resemblance  to  the  standard  portraits. 
Holbrook's  doubt  (p.  54  f.)  as  to  the  originality  and  period  of  Pietro  Lom- 
bardi's  feeble  portraiture  seem  to  me  unnecessary,  for  the  influence  of  Pietro's 
version  is  shown  in  woodcuts  before  1500.  But,  judging  from  the  photograph, 
the  marble  may  have  been  drastically  refinished  in  a  more  modern  manner 
during  one  of  the  various  restorations  of  the  tomb. 

p.  24 

21.  The   Paris    Miniature   Dante,    illustration    for    Inferno    I,    in    Ital.    Ms.    74,    Bibl. 

Nat.  (Fig.  43),  date  about  1400.  The  larger  figure  has  a  straight  nose  with  the 
lips  drawn  back  upon  toothless  jaws.  This  is  the  earliest  example  known  to 
me  of  a  straight  nosed  toothless  type  which  ends  with  Signorelli  (No.  26). 
Orcagna's  Dante  (Fig.  19)  is  toothless,  but  the  later  portraits  which  show  this 
trait  are  so  different  and  so  far  from  any  true  tradition  that  one  may  suppose 
they  rest  upon  some  oral  report  of  Dante's  toothlessness  in  old  age. 

P-  55 

22.  Giovanni  dal  Ponte's   Dante    (Fig.  44),  on  a  cassonc  end  in  the  Fogg  Museum, 

Harvard  University.  Dante  with  a  fellow  poet  is  represented  at  full  length 
being  crowned  with  a  wreath  by  a  flying  genius.  Date  about  1440.  Straight 
nosed  and  toothless,  this  head  or  its  equivalent  should  be  Signorelli's  exemplar. 

P-  55  f- 

23.  Dante  on  a  Jardiniere  in  the  Uffizi   (Fig.  49).     In  a  Triumph  of  Fame  later  than 

1450  in  a  style  akin  to  that  of  the  "Cassone  Master."  An  aged  straight  nosed 
and  toothless  type  so  near  Raphael's  that  one  is  inclined  to  imagine  that  he 
may  have  seen  this  piece  in  the  old  Medici  collections. 

P-  57 

24.  Dante  in   the  Urbino  Codex    (Fig.  45).     This  extraordinary   Ms.,  Urbin.   369  of 

the  Vatican  Library,  is  not  wholly  consistent  in  its  portraiture  of  Dante,  but 
generally  the  face  is  toothless  with  a  huge  aquiline  nose.  Possibly  we  have 
to  do  with  a  fusion  of  the  cassone  type  (No.  22)  and  the  Medal  (No.  11). 
Date  about  1480.     Many  fine  cuts  in  Bassermann. 

PP-  55.  57 

25.  Filippino  Lippi's  Dante(?)    in  the   fresco    (Fig.  50)    of  St.   Peter  before  Nero  in 

the  Brancacci  Chapel,  Carmine.  Date  about  1484.  This  is  not  explicitly  a 
portrait  of  Dante  but  rather  a  personage  of  the  story  with  Dante's  features. 
Raphael  took  it  for  a  Dante,  for  he  used  it  for  his  own  type  (Nos.  27-29). 
The  iconographical  peculiarities  are  the  long  rounded  ear-tabs  which  here 
appear  for  the  first  time,  and  the  straight  nose.  I  can  find  no  sure  trace  of 
earlier  portraits,  though  the  intentness  of  the  expression  and  the  facial  pro- 
portions may  echo  the  Riccardian   (Fig.  28). 

p.  57  f- 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  83 

1500—1600 

26.  SiGNORELLi's  Dante   (Fig.  46)   in  the  dado  of  the  Chapel  of   S.  Brixio  at  Orvieto. 

A  reading  type,  straight  nosed  and  toothless,  derived  from  a  miniature — cassone 
type  similar  to  Giovanni  dal  Ponte's,  No.  22.  The  several  small  portraits  of 
Dante  in  the  same  decoration,  in  illustrations  of  the  "Divine  Comedy,"  are  not 
characteristic,  but  often  have  the  pointed  ear-tabs  with  crinkled  ties  of  the 
Palatine  type.     They  are  probably  by  an  assistant. 

PP-  55,  57 

27.  Raphael's   Dante  in  the   Disputa    (Fig.  54)    fresco.     Date   about    151 1.     A   very 

composite  type  which  draws  from  Justus  of  Ghent  (No.  15)  Filippino  Lippi, 
the  rounded  ear-tabs,  (No.  25),  and  possibly,  for  expression  of  eager  senility, 
upon  Orcagna  (No.  4).  It  is  drawn  exclusively  from  eccentric  types,  including 
possibly  No.  23,  and  is  wholly  out  of  the  true  tradition. 

pp.  61-63 

28.  Raphael's   Albertina    Drawing    (Fig.    55)    full    length    pen    study    for    the    Dante 

of  the  Parnassus.    A  younger  version  of  No.  25.    Date  and  derivation  as  above. 

p.  63 

29.  Raphael's    Dante  of   the    Parnassus    (Fig.    56),    Date   and    derivation    as    above. 

p.  62 

30.  The   Naples    Bust    (Figs.   32,   33),   nearly   life    sized,    in    the    Farnese    Collections, 

Museo  Nazionale,  Naples.  Probably  modelled  by  a  Florentine  imitator  of 
Donatello  in  the  early  years  of  the  i6th  century.  This  is  the  artistic  consum- 
mation of  the  grim  type  of  Taddeo  Gaddi.  It  agrees  very  closely  in  facial 
proportions  and  essential  iconographical  features  with  the  Palatine  Miniature 
(Fig.  34).  But  the  artist  also  knew  the  Riccardian  type,  adopting  the  form  of 
the  cap,  the  rigid  ties,  small  eye,  retreating  forehead,  and  protruding  under 
lip.  If  I  am  right  in  detecting  the  influence  of  the  Bust  in  the  woodcut  of  1521 
(No.  ;i2),  we  have  a  terminus  ad  qucm   for  the  Bust. 

PP-  39-41 

31.  The    Torrigiani    Death-Mask,    a    very    high    relief    in    colored    plaster,    given    in 

1840  by  Marchese  Pietro  Torregiani  to  the  Uffizi.  Not  surely  traceable  before 
1735-  The  many  other  versions  are  recent  casts  (Passerini,  24-29).  The 
profile,  except  for  the  horizontal  setting  of  the  eye,  agrees  exactly  with  the 
Riccardian  Portrait  (Fig.  30).  That  is  the  main  source,  but  the  modeller  may 
have  also  seen  the  Naples  Bust  or  an  equivalent.  Probably  a  falsification  of 
the  second  quarter  of  the  i6th  century,  based  on  the  discarded  portrait  of 
1429  which  was  still  in  the  Cathedral  precincts.  If  the  Munich  drawing  (No. 
36)   is  derived  from  the  "Mask,"  the  latest  date  for  the  latter  is  1540-1550. 

pp.  6,  36 

2,2.  Title  Woodcut  of  the  "Convivio"  of  1521  (Fig.  57).  Composed  like  an  early 
Renaissance  Venetian  portrait  with  a  mountainous  background,  and  possibly 
based  on  such  an  original.  Apparently  chiefly  influenced  by  the  Naples  Bust, 
for  which  it  afYords  a  terminal  date.  The  headgear  may  be  taken  from  Pietro 
Lombardi's  tomb  relief  (No.  20). 

p.  63  f. 


84  THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE 

33.  Title  Woodcut   of  the  Divine  Comedy  of    1529,  Venice    (Fig.   58).     An  ambigu- 

ous type  pretty  freely  invented  with,  possibly,  consultation  of  the  Medal  (No. 
,11),  the  Tomb  Relief   (No.  20)  and  Justus  of  Ghent   (No.  15). 

p.  64 

34.  V.'^s.ARi's  Dante  in   a   Group  of  Poets,   1544.    A  version   in   the    Senior   Common 

Room  of  Oriel  College,  Oxford  (cut,  Holbrook,  p.  154)  and  another  now  un- 
located,  formerly  in  the  Orleans  Gallery  represented  by  an  engraving  (cut, 
Holbrook,  p.  156).  This  appears  to  be  an  effeminated  and  sentimentalized  ver- 
sion of  Giotto's  Dante  (No.  3)  in  the  Bargello.  The  reading  pose  with  head 
turned  over  the  left  shoulder  from  Signorelli   (No.  26). 

p.  30  f. 

35.  Vasari's    Dante   the    Head   only    (Fig.   26).     Oil    painting    on    panel,    Cleveland 

Museum  of  Art.  A  nearly  contemporary  copy  with  the  oval  ear-tabs  narrowed 
after  Raphael's  precedent. 

p.  31 

36.  The   Munich    Drawing    (Fig.   61).      A    fine    brush    drawing    in    the    Print    Room. 

Berenson  considers  it  by  a  follower  of  Michelangelo  of  Rosso's  sort  and  dates 
it  about  1540.  It  seems  to  be  freely  modified  from  the  Death-mask,  for  which 
it  perhaps  affords  an  approximate  latest  date. 

p.  65f. 

37.  Oval    Woodcut    in    Sessa's    "Divine    Comedy,"    Venice,    1564    (Fig.    62).      Dante 

with  a  huge  nose.  Apparently  drawn  from  an  original  similar  to  the  Munich 
Drawing,  and  perhaps  influenced  by  No.  34. 

p.  66 

38.  The   Galletti   Head   in    Terra    Cotta    (Fig.    63    and    Passerini,   29,   30).      Similar 

to  the  last  two  numbers  but  of  entirely  uncertain  period.  At  best  a  work  of 
about  1600. 

P-  IZ 

39.  The    Yale   Dante    probably    after    Bronzino    (Fig.    40).      Half    length    with    book 

in  right  hand.  A  direct  derivation  of  Domenico  di  Michelino's  Dante  (Fig. 
38),  the  narrower  look  of  the  face  being  mostly  due  to  the  heavier  shading 
in  the  later  work.  Regarded  as  an  old  copy  from  Bronzino  by  Dr.  Siren  in 
his  "Catalogue  of  the  Jarves  Collection,"  No.  85. 

A  variant  without  the  hand  is  in  the  Uffizi  (Holbrook,  p.  184).  In  1757 
Raphael  Morghen  (Fig.  39)  engraved  the  frontispiece  of  the  beautiful  Zatta 
Dante  after  Tofanelli's  drawing  from  a  picture  of  this  type.  This  gentle  and 
somewhat  woebegone  presentment  of  the  poet  has  been  unduly  popular  as  a 
frontispiece  almost  till  today. 

p.  48 

40.  Bernardino    India's     Dante    engraved    by    Heylbrouck    as     frontispiece     for     the 

Comino,  Padua,  Dante  of  1737  (Fig.  59).  Then  in  the  collection  of  Count 
Daniele  Lisca,  Verona,  present  whereabouts  unknown.  Dated  by  Holbrook  in 
1572.  A  morose  and  disagreeable  type  of  uncertain  origin.  I  think  the  Medal 
(Fig.  29)  and  the  Venetian  woodcut  in  the  Commedia  of  1529  (No.  33)  may 
largely  account  for  it,  but  the  huge  eye  suggests  the  reading  of  Boccaccio.     I 


THE  PORTRAITS  OF  DANTE  85 

list  it  only  because  of  its  great  vogue  in  the  i8th.  and  early  19th.  centuries. 
On  the  margin  of  the  example  of  the  print  in  the  Princeton  University  Library 
an  outraged  eighteenth  century  purist  has  scribbled  the  comment  "blood,  lust, 
dung."  If  the  sentiment  applies  only  to  the  portrait,  I  largely  agree  with 
the  writer. 

p.  64  f. 

41.  The  "Bellini-India"  Dante,  represented  by  an  engraving  in  the  Zatta  Dante, 
Venice,  1757  (Fig,  60).  Reversed  from  the  India  type  with  a  wreath  added. 
The  original  was  absurdly  ascribed  to  Giambellino  and  preserved  in  the  col- 
lection of  Marchese  Jacopo  di  Dionisio  Can,  Venice.  Present  whereabouts 
unknown.  Listed  only  because  the  lost  original  seems  to  have  been  of  the 
16th.  century. 

p.  65 

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